James Hall, who owns Hall Crystal Flutes with his wife Jenny, warms up the flames on one of the machines he uses to taper the glass used for his crystal flutes on Wednesday afternoon at his shop in Rochester.
James Hall plays a glass didgeridoo inside his shop in Rochester on Wednesday afternoon.
The custom machine James Hall created to make the tone holes for each flute is seen at work in the reflection of his protective glasses as he works at his Rochester shop on Wednesday afternoon.
James Hall works with one of the machines he uses to alter the glass he uses to create crystal flutes on Wednesday afternoon in Rochester. The machine is hooked to a computer which he programmed to fit the precision of the several various sizes of flutes that he makes.
James Hall and his wife, Jenny, look on as he demonstrates the first step in create the finger holes in the crystal flutes they make at their shop in Rochester on Wednesday afternoon. The machine, which he created, heats bubbles where the finger holes for each flute are placed before he sands them off.
James Hall uses a homemade glass lathe to put a Boehm taper on the end of a glass flute on Wednesday afternoon at his shop in Rochester.
Jenny Hall, who owns Hall Crystal Flutes with her husband, James, attaches the custom decals to the flutes after he is finished creating the flutes.
In his workshop in Rochester on a rainy Wednesday afternoon, Jim Hall carefully placed a 4-foot tube of glass on a homemade machine he calls the “Flute Tractor” and flipped on a blowtorch.
He pressed a button, the ‘Flute Tractor’ began rotating the tube, which sat on rollerblade wheels, as he heated 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 all 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.
“We’d pull some little pipets that we used in chemistry and I thought, I can use this, ‘I can do this,’” Jim Hall said.
After he made $300 in one weekend at a craft show on campus, he was hooked, and hit the road selling his flutes for a good 10 years.
Even today, the couple is frequently found at music conventions, craft fairs and music festivals peddling their unique glass flutes, 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 generally, with larger pieces like the didgeridoos running nearly $200 for a 4-foot piece.
This generally allows teenagers or people who haven’t played in years access to an instrument.
The glass also 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.
Even after more than four decades making flutes, Jim Hall isn’t tired of it.
He said he’s constantly changing them and 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.”
Jenny Hall runs the business side of the operation, including shipping, which they handle out of their garage.
The couple also sells imported Clarke penny whistles and other small instruments, but said the heart of their business is their own products.
“It’s nice to have handmade in the U.S.A. I think we’ve been proud to make something here,” Jenny Hall said.
