Metal Inlay

Where metal inlay works in joinery

Inlay earns its place wherever a surface needs definition without weight. In joinery it most often appears as:

• Wall panelling – fine brass lines tracing panel edges, framing openings and marking junctions across a panelled room, developed alongside Wall Panelling.
• Cabinet and door fronts – grids of stringing across doors and drawer fronts, or a single line defining a reveal.
• Shelving and libraries – brass-edged shelves and inlaid uprights in Libraries & Bookcases.
• Home cinemas and media rooms – inlay that catches low light and gives a dark room its detail, as in our Home Cinema joinery.
• Bars and counters – metal-lined edges and tops that survive heavy use, often part of Hospitality Bars & Back Counters.
• Floors and thresholds – metal-lined borders and inset thresholds that mark the edge of a room.

Techniques

• Line inlay and stringing – strips of metal, typically 1–3mm wide, set into routed channels. The channel is cut fractionally undersized, the metal pressed and bonded in, then levelled and finished flush with the surface.
• Panel and marquetry inlay – larger shapes such as fans, stars, lettering or full compositions, cut from sheet metal and set into matching recesses, often combined with veneer marquetry, mother of pearl or stone.
• Cast and applied details – where a detail needs depth as well as outline, such as an escutcheon, corner guard or mount, the metal is cast or machined and let into the surface or applied over it.

Choosing the metal

Brass is the default: warm in colour, kind to work and steady with age. Bronze runs darker and richer and takes patination beautifully, deepening over the years into something new metal cannot fake. Nickel silver and stainless steel give a cool, silvery line for contemporary schemes. Each can be left bright, brushed, darkened or patinated — our guide to metal finishes covers the full range.

Engineering the seam

Metal and timber expand and contract at different rates, so an inlay has to be designed for the room it will live in, not just the workshop it is made in. Channels are sized to the metal and the timber species, metal and wood are finished together so the surface reads as one, and the inlay is checked against the approved sample before a piece is released. Where a piece carries load, the structure is steel or PVD-coated stainless rather than brass, which is too soft to do that work alone.

In a project: Country Home Cinema

In a joinery-led home cinema in rural Oxfordshire, designed with Rachel Battais Interiors, fine brass inlays run through grey oak panelling — tracing around doors, framing shelving and punctuating key junctions. Integrated LED lighting grazes over the brass, so the lines glow softly when the room goes dark. See the project.

How we make metal inlay

1. Brief and drawings We agree where the inlay runs, its width and its metal, and resolve every junction, corner and termination on the drawings.
2. Samples We make samples in the actual metal and timber of the scheme, so the line can be judged in the light of the room before anything is committed.
3. Making Strips, shapes and castings are made in a partner metalwork workshop and set into the joinery in a partner joinery workshop, both working to the same shop drawings.
4. Finishing Metal and timber are finished together, then checked against the approved sample before the piece is released.
5. Installation Panelling and joinery are installed and the inlay lines aligned across joints on site, so a line that runs through a room stays continuous.

Next steps

Share drawings, a reference image or simply the idea — a single brass line or a full inlaid composition — and we will come back with materials, samples and an itemised quote. For the history and craft of the technique, read our journal guide to metal inlays.