By Aaron Kunkler
The Chronicle
CENTRALIA — In his workshop in Rochester on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, Jim Hall carefully places a 4-foot tube of glass on a homemade machine he calls the “Flute Tractor” and flips on a blowtorch.
He presses a button and the ‘Flute Tractor’ begins rotating the tube, which sites on Rollerblade wheels, as he heats the end of the glass. As the glass heats up, Hall pinches off the end and flattens it out before tapering a few inches on the end of the tube.
He places it on a rack to cool and grabs another glass tube, placing it on another homemade machine called the “BlueStar,” a contraption he also programmed software for.
This machine moves the tube into seven positions, heating sections of the glass while pressurized air is forced through it, creating bubbles. Once the bubbles have been created, he removes the tube from the machine and lets it cool again.
Later, he’ll take these tubes and sand off the bubbles, creating a blowhole and six finger holes for the flute before it is decorated. He can make up to 40 of these in a busy day, which takes up all of the work week for both him and his wife, Jenny.
“That’s what we’ve got is a lifestyle business,” he said later, after setting the tube down.
The couple has operated Hall Crystal Flutes Inc. out of their Rochester home since they were married in 1994, but Jim Hall had been making flutes for at least two decades before that.
He said it started when he was attending L.A. City College in 1974 as a 19-year-old intent on earning a degree in chemistry. He started making flutes as Christmas presents out of chemistry pipets.
After he made $300 in one weekend at a craft show on campus, he was hooked, and hit the road selling his flutes for 10 years.
Even today, the couple is frequently found at music conventions, craft fairs and music festivals peddling their instruments, which range in size from piccolos to didgeridoos, and which they sell to music stores in bulk or individually, online and internationally.
This widespread customer base has served them well, Jenny Hall said. “We’ve been able to float with the ups and downs of the economy because we’re so diversified,” she said.
Their prices also help as the flutes range from $50 to $110, with larger pieces like the didgeridoos running nearly $200 for a 4-foot piece.
The glass gives a bright sound due to the rigidity of the material, but Jim Hall said the smaller sized holes he cuts in them help temper it. “It doesn’t absorb a lot of the sound energy because it’s so hard the sound just bounces right off,” he said.
Hall said he’s constantly working on new designs, like a pan pipe that he hopes to produce when he has time.
“Quality is a huge thing with Jim,” Jenny Hall said. “Anything that’s not perfect goes in the garbage can.”
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