A shop with one bench and no hurry

Kestrel Lane is a small hand-tool joinery. Everything leaves here cut, fitted and finished by one pair of hands, usually in ash, cherry, or pine pulled out of old roof joists.

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What comes off the bench

• Trestle tables

  Draw-bored mortise and tenon, wedged through-tenons, no metal fasteners anywhere in the frame.

• Tool chests

  Dovetailed carcases in pine with a fitted till stack. Built to the dimensions of the tools that go in them.

• Wall cabinets

  Frame and panel doors, shop-mixed shellac, brass butt hinges cleaned up by hand.

• Repairs

  Loose chairs, split table tops, drawers that bind in August. Hide glue where hide glue was used first.

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How the work runs

The queue is short on purpose - three or four commissions a year. Timber is bought rough, stickered, and left alone for a season before anything is cut. That waiting is most of the reason the joints stay tight.

Finishes are shellac, oil and wax. Nothing sprayed, nothing that needs a mask to apply.