About
A channery is a place where came is drawn. This one has been drawing since 2011.
I came up in a stained-glass studio, apprenticed six years in the cutting room and then two more at the lead bench, before realizing the came we were fighting with — soft where we needed stiffness, stiff where we needed draw — was a fixable problem if someone was willing to mill it themselves.
The shop is a converted dairy barn on a quiet road. Four rooms: the foundry (where lead is assayed and ladled), the mill (the 1952 flywheel and its dies), the bench (straightening, tagging, bundling), and the crate room (kraft, slate, and a wood-stove that's older than the mill). The dog — a red heeler named Mica — stays in the office unless there's lead in the air.
I work alone, and I mean to keep it that way. The scale of the work matches the scale of the craft it supports — small studios, careful conservators, restorations that take years and deserve stock drawn with the same patience.
Working principles
Answer the window, not the catalog
If the original panel was leaded in an odd profile at an odd width, that's the stock I'll mill. A published catalog is a starting point, not a wall. The library has some forty dies on the rack; ten more wait blank on the lathe shelf.
Slow is the craft, not a virtue
Drawing came slowly is how you get came that lies flat, solders cleanly, and doesn't fail in twenty years. I don't romanticize it. Lead is a creep-prone metal; if you rush the draw the crystal structure never settles, and the stick will sag before its first winter.
Write everything down
Every batch has a record in the shop ledger: alloy source, die number, mill date, stick count, ambient humidity at draw. If a panel needs repair in 2070, someone should be able to find what went into it. The ledger copies go in a fireproof cabinet in the office.
Keep the circle small
New work comes in through studios I've worked with before, or through their referrals. It keeps the calendar sane and the conversations specific. I'd rather do one job carefully than ten in a rush.
A short history of this bench
- 2003
Apprenticeship begins in a mid-sized studio. Cutting room first, then firing and painting.
- 2009
Two years at the lead bench under a Yorkshire-trained leader. First time I heard someone call came "calm."
- 2011
The barn is bought at auction. The flywheel mill arrives on a flatbed in October; it takes four people and a come-along to get it through the door.
- 2014
First tapered-came job: an oculus for a university chapel. Sixteen sticks, sixteen slightly different dies, all cut on the yard lathe.
- 2019
The mill goes down mid-run. Rebuilt over a winter with help from a retired pattern-maker two counties over.
- 2023
Ledger digitized (as backup only — the paper ledger stays).
- 2026
42 active dies. Mica, the heeler, turns seven. The queue is full into spring.