EPPLER FLUTE COMPANY: ALEX EPPLER FLUTEMAKER (1955 – 2019)
L – R: Alto flute, C flute, Piccolo
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Monday, October 31, 2005
West Seattle flute wizard crafts classic instrument and revives a tradition
“In terms of quality, I’m near the top,” said Eppler, 50, in an interview last week. “As far as number, I’m near the bottom. Production, design — that’s really interesting to me.
Eppler , Seattle Post-Intelligencer
By DAN RICHMAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
In his secluded West Seattle workshop, Alexander Illitch Eppler makes and restores some of the country’s most venerable, highly regarded flutes. With long, silvery hair and traces of a Slavic accent in his elegant English, Eppler is an unusual figure. He’s a painstaking artisan, producing at most 50 instruments in each of the past 35 years, but turning a profit. He seems cloistered in his subterranean-feeling studio, but he’s frequently in touch with other instrument makers worldwide.
“In terms of quality, I’m near the top,” said Eppler, 50, in an interview last week. “As far as number, I’m near the bottom. Production, design — that’s really interesting to me.
Everything else is tedious beyond belief.” Eppler’s specialty is restoring and making wooden orchestral flutes, made of rare Cocus wood, Grenadilla wood or African blackwood. He also makes flutes of sterling silver and 14-karat gold and turns out wooden head joints, or mouthpieces, for use in metal or wooden flutes.
His flutes cost between $6,800 and nearly $30,000. He or one of three assistants makes and assembles every body, screw, rod and spring in each flute. Only the keypads are bought. Lathe tolerances are as small as two-ten thousandths of an inch — tough to manage when working on hard metals such as sterling silver and red-orange gold. Wooden bodies are aged for up to 10 years before being bored, burnished, polished and sealed, in stages that may be a year apart. Entire orchestras have converted to wooden flutes in Europe, though silver models still prevail in this country, Eppler said.
For an interesting history of Alex’s life and musicianship and wood flute making please visit Woodworkers Journal.
Here is a quoted section regarding Alex’s work with and passion for making wood flutes:
“Eppler explained that wooden flutes have far greater depth and richness of tone than the metal instruments more familiar to most of us. They are also more difficult and more complicated to make. Boring, reaming, polishing, drying, accounting for wood movement and all the other processes are more variable with wood that with metal.
Woodworkers Journal.
I only use a few woods on a regular basis, primarily African blackwood, cocus wood, snake wood and mopane, along with some high grade kingwood, partridge wood, cornus mas (Cornelian cherry dogwood), mountain mahogany and oyster wood.”