On Wednesday, February 19, close to two dozen members of the Acton Woman’s Club (AWC) were treated to a tour of the Wm. S. Haynes Company. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest flute-making company in the world and specializes in professional custom-level instruments, although student, intermediate, and pre-professional flutes from the Beijing location are finished in Acton. Customers can also have their Haynes flutes repaired at the Acton facility. Haynes custom flutes, made of silver, gold, platinum, and alloys, range in price from $11,000 to $80,000. The company’s sales goal last year was $7 million.
Persuaded by a friend to move to Boston in the late 1800s, when the cost of importing French flutes was very high, George and William Haynes, having apprenticed as jewelers in their youth and with a mastery of metalworking, established the company. Today, the abundance of flute makers in the Boston area can be traced back to the Haynes brothers establishment. Although Haynes started out crafting wooden flutes (with silver keys), metal flute design was pioneered in the U.S., in large part by the company; Haynes ceased wooden flute production except for special orders in 1918.
From 1926 to 1942, when the scarcity of workers and metals due to the war threatened to shut down many businesses, Haynes survived by making clarinets for the U.S. military. According to the company website, “The Wm. Haynes Company still makes flutes for military bands and orchestras around the world.” In the early 2000s, the company was once again at risk of folding, due to many changes in ownership in the decade prior. The Eastman Music Co., founded by Ni Qian who had started out selling violins out of his car in the streets of Boston, bought the company in 2004.
Qian moved the company to Acton in 2010 from their previous location on Piedmont Street in Boston. The building at 68 Nonset Path was gutted and renovated. They employ about 25 full-time workers. There are about 300 parts in a flute, and Haynes employees make them and assemble the flutes by hand, although digital calipers and computer-aided manufacturing processes assist. The parts are sourced locally: castings from Lowell, tubings from Attleboro. It takes roughly 3 to 4 months per flute, and Haynes produces between 140 and 200 flutes annually.
David Schipani, director of product design and development, described the important work of the technicians in the body-making and stringing workshops he manages. “A custom-made flute is manufactured for one reason: to help a high level player achieve their artistic goals.”
The employees working here have a variety of backgrounds. Some have studied art, music, or metal and jewelry design. A few were musicians, although they played the tuba or drums, not the flute. When the flutes are passed on to technicians in the finishing, quality control, and head joint workshops, they are handled only by expert flute players.
The final two workshops, quality control and head joint, were too small for the tour group to visit, so Joy Roberts, director of quality management, and master headjoint maker Aiven O’Leary, who is also the president of the company, explained their work to the AWC members back in the show room.
O’Leary finishes the tube, riser and lip plate of the headjoint, hand carving the embouchure (the opening in the lip plate) with a rotary tool that has a very hard steel blade, followed by sanding with a very fine sandpaper. The process takes a long time, and O’Leary plays the flute between each and every tiny adjustment. She has learned where to stop after going too far, having finished thousands of headjoints in her career. She points out that although the embouchure seems like just a hole in the lip plate, it is critical to finish it exactly right. “The flute is an inefficient instrument. Clarinet and saxophone go in your mouth: all the air goes into the instrument. Brass instruments: all the air goes inside. That doesn’t happen with the flute.”
As the final test, Roberts inspects the flute as a whole instrument, playing it once all the parts come out of the finishing workshop and are put together. She also hands it off to other flutists in the workshops to play. “The flute becomes organic in the artist’s hands. They’re playing music on the instrument. They’re creating art.” She asks herself whether she’d buy it. Is the sound “cloudy”? Is it “slippery” (the player can’t catch the low notes with their air)? Perhaps one register feels a little “stuffy” compared to the others. Roberts sends flutes that don’t play perfectly back to the technicians for more adjustments. A lot of Haynes’ customers are dealers who may buy a few flutes to sell to customers in their shops. O’Leary noted, “Best case scenario is when someone comes into the shop, and we get to work with them directly, but that doesn’t always happen.”
Following the tour, organized by AWC’s Antiques and Museum Goers Group, many of the attendees headed to Bella’s Great Road for lunch. The group organizes 7 to 8 excursions for AWC members each year to local museums, historic homes, and antique shops. Next month, they’ll be visiting the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. To learn more about the Acton Woman’s Club, celebrating their 110th Anniversary this year, visit their website.
Alissa Nicol is a Select Board member and a member of the Acton Woman’s Club. She is a community events reporter for the Acton Exchange.