Episode 1 Money for Nothing

That looks interesting! What is that?

How do you make money for nothing?

Stop, stop, stop.

The answer could be hiding in over 20 million tonnes of household waste

thrown out by us every year.

-Can I have it?

-Yeah, by all means, you're welcome, yeah.

-Fantastic.

That's why entrepreneur Sarah Moore wants to get her hands on things

before they hit the skip.

I'm a passionate buyer,

maker and user of old stuff and I turned that passion into a moneymaking business.

I make new stuff out of old stuff and I sell it for a profit.

And with some of the country's elite designers and makers...

-Enough to work on?

-Just a bit, yeah!

It is a beast, isn't it?

..she can transform her finds into desirable...

I can't believe it!

..valuable...

-Aren't you clever!

-..And hopefully saleable items.

Oh, wow!

If Sarah is successful then she can hand the profits back to

the very people who had no idea there was cash to be made from their trash.

That's amazing!

Woodhouse Lane Recycling Centre in Altrincham, Greater Manchester.

Here, Sarah is on the hunt for a piece of junk to fire up

her rejuvenation imagination.

You know me, I'm full of rubbish ideas.

But where's the rubbish? Let's go get it.

She's been given special permission to roam the tip looking for trash.

But there's one rule that must obeyed.

Once it's hit the skip, it's out of bounds.

Somebody must have popped that in when I wasn't looking.

Sarah must be ever vigilant and eagle-eyed to find three items

that she can bring back to life and sell on for a profit.

Will the junk in Andrew's trunk take her fancy?

-Hi there.

-Hi.

Is that... What is it?

It's a piece of granite. It used to be my desk.

It used to be your desk, you say?

-Yeah, it used to be sort of fitted in in a run of kitchen units.

-OK.

It used to have my cables through and it sat on some base units

which I've just skipped, clearly.

Right, OK. Well, it's my lucky day then,

cos that is a really substantial chunk of granite.

-Yeah.

-What is the other... Because presumably that's the other side,

isn't it? So...

-Wow.

-So it looks like that.

-It's really impressive, isn't it?

Yeah.

Well, now, it would seem Sarah is smitten with this great big slab of granite.

It looks like just the most fantastic thing that you could imagine

ending up at the tip. So can I have it?

-It would be a pleasure.

-Yeah?

Yours. Sold.

Andrew's desktop is a heavyweight hunk of junk.

But the good people of Altrincham are always happy to lend Sarah a hand.

It's actually quite a nice piece of granite.

Driving here, it just seemed a shame it was going on the tip.

So in meeting Sarah, she'll take it away,

hopefully do something fantastic with it, maybe another table or a desk.

And I'd be really pleased to see it.

Let's meet the maker Sarah's hoping will take on this piece of solid rock.

Daniel Heath has a passion for all things salvaged and sustainable.

He's an award-winning fabric and wallpaper designer who loves adding

artistic flair to bespoke furniture pieces.

I started off as a printmaker, doing textiles and wallpaper.

But now I really enjoy working with wood and working with slate.

I like the challenge of working with new materials.

And I really enjoy it when people come to me with interesting projects

and strange materials to try and print onto,

cos I like the challenge.

Be careful what you wish for, Daniel.

You've got a heavyweight challenge coming your way.

One item snaffled, but there are still two to find.

And for Sarah, every boot full of trash has the potential to be turned

into a pocketful of cash.

You really need to think before you throw things away because everything

comes back into fashion eventually.

Wait for it,

wait for it, wait...

SMACK SARAH: Ow!

Pure comedy gold.

Is there any loot lurking in Gail's boot?

So what are you dropping off today, then?

Well, there's an old microscope...

-Yeah.

-..which I was given some time ago.

It's a 10x microscope.

So that looks like a pretty powerful piece of kit.

-What do you do with it?

-Well, I'm an ecologist,

but for my spare time I like to look at water beetles from ponds and things...

-OK.

-..And this was given to me so that I could do that.

But I've got myself a nice new one.

So how old do you think that is?

I don't know. Must be '60s, I would have thought. Looks it, doesn't it?

There's something about it, it looks like a frog, doesn't it?

-Look at it.

-It does.

-It's great.

-Yeah.

Sarah's upcycling expertise could be put under the microscope with this item.

Is it something that rather than putting it into the small appliance tip,

I could take away and do something with?

-Definitely, definitely.

-Brilliant.

And I'm seeing the copper pipe next to it. So what was that from?

That was just left over from when I had some central heating put in,

that the plumber never took away, and it's one of those things you think,

"Oh, I might use it one day," and never did.

-So you've had that for a while then, as well?

-I have, yeah.

-Excellent.

In the shed and then in the garden, so... Yeah.

Well, what I might do is definitely take the microscope away and have a look at that.

And oddly, might keep that with it.

Taking it away might be easier said than done.

-Would you say it's quite heavy?

-It is quite heavy, yes.

-OK.

Oh, my word!

-Lead, do you think?

-I think it probably is, yes.

Brilliant. Well, I will say thank you very much,

and I'll keep in touch.

Great.

What does Gail think Sarah might do with her rubbish dump goodies?

I have no idea what she's going to do with it.

No idea. She could make a water fountain out of the copper.

She's laughing, but Sarah just might, you know.

However, I think she's more taken with the microscope.

Don't you just love it? A scientific instrument.

I've never had one of those before.

I think it looks wonderful. It's retro, it's chunky, it's metallic.

It's got little knobs on it.

Something fabulous is going to come out of this, isn't it?

Sarah knows just the fella for this challenge.

Meet Mark Haig, Robo-sculptor.

Mark creates one-of-a-kind robots using vintage and second-hand materials.

Something he's been up to since he was knee-high to a nanobyte.

My dad was a clock repairer and I would sit in front of a three bar

electric fire as a seven-year-old kid and I'd get some bits of clocks from my dad

and I'd make some kind of mad robot.

And 40 years later, I'm still doing the same stuff.

I enjoy the process of actually finding something,

just walking past a skip,

and I'll see something in the skip and I'll think,

that's perfect and I can make something out of that.

And I'll combine it with some other things that I found or I've bought

from car-boot sales or wherever, and I'll make a sculpture.

Will the microscope capture Mark's imagination?

Sarah's grabbed goodies for Daniel and Mark.

Now she's on the hunt for her own item.

It can't be any old rubbish, though.

It has to be just the right kind of rubbish.

Let's hope Anthony and Jez,

the most smartly dressed white van men I've ever seen,

have just what she's looking for.

-Hiya.

-Hiya.

-Hello.

-I'm Sarah.

-Nice to meet you.

-Who are you?

-Anthony.

-Anthony.

-Who are you?

-I'm Jez.

Jez. Hiya. Is it the rabbit hutch?

-This is a chicken pen.

-Oh, yeah.

So have you got chickens?

-We did have...

-Oh, right.

..but we decided to get shot because of the smell.

-Really?

-So this is the disused pen that we've dismantled.

OK. So did you have to go and clean them out, or did you refuse?

-No, I refused.

-Really?

Did you eat the eggs, though?

Yeah, I did eat the eggs.

Yeah, I'm contemplating getting chickens.

-Here we go, here's a panel.

-Ah, that's brilliant.

That is loads there, that's plenty to be...

-Is that enough?

-..yeah, to be getting on with, definitely.

Any ideas what you can do with it?

I'm not going to tell you. But if I do manage to make something,

-can I come and show you what I've done?

-Sure you can.

-Yes.

-Yes?

-Yes.

-Well, I'm going to do my best to...

I think some sort of ornament, maybe.

Some sculpture, maybe?

That's a challenge. So did the chickens move out recently?

-Yes.

-I'll keep my gloves on, then!

Thank you so much.

Who would've thought a chicken coop would have caught Sarah's eye?

Not me. What about Anthony?

No, not at all. I thought it would be straight in the skip and get taken away.

But if it can be used, then that's fantastic, really.

Well, it might look like a pile of old rubbish to you,

but I'm going to take that from the chicken house to the penthouse,

because it is a really useful bundle of raw material and I think it's got

heaps of potential.

It's certainly got rubbish heap potential!

Sarah's saved her three items.

Daniel will take on the challenge of the hefty hunk of granite.

Mark will work his makeover magic on the microscope.

And Sarah will need to make this chicken wire into something saleable.

Well, it's been rubbish, rubbish, rubbish all day.

And what fantastic rubbish it turned out to be.

I've got an eclectic collection of fabulous finds and I think

I'm going to be able to transform them into hard cash.

Walthamstow in East London has all the hustle and bustle of

a thriving city suburb, combined with the warm welcome of village life.

It's this combination that has earned the area its nickname "Awesome-stow".

One of its most awesome residents is upcycler extraordinaire Daniel.

Sarah's got a treat in store for him.

This slab of stone.

It's been a real mixed bag in the past,

so whether I get something that's going to be easier or challenging,

who knows?

Me, I know.

I can tell you this, it's not easier.

-Good luck, Daniel.

-OK!

A gravestone.

Don't be rude about my granite!

We need some help getting it upstairs, this thing weighs a tonne.

Yeah, yeah, I bet it does.

Oh, my God!

Only the two flights of stairs, Daniel.

Hurry up, now!

It is a beast, isn't it?

It's an absolute beast.

-OK.

-Good-looking beast?

It is. It's very substantial.

-Have you ever worked with granite before?

-No. No.

I've worked with marble and slate, which I use quite a lot.

They're all a bit softer, aren't they?

I think this is going to be a real hard product...

-They are, yeah.

-..to cut and to move around,

cos it just feels absolutely rock hard,

-but slate and that kind of stuff just feels not as dense, does it?

-Yeah.

I mean, this is going to be quite tricky.

Quite tricky?

Patting your head while rubbing your tummy is quite tricky.

This is very hard.

Literally. Granite is one of the world's hardest stones.

While Daniel may lack experience of working with granite,

he makes up for it with ingenuity and an inspired eye for design.

So, what is he going to make with it?

It does lend itself obviously to a table, I suppose.

Yeah, I mean I think it would make sense.

I mean, it's obviously completely flat.

The first thing I'm thinking is how do I sort of simplify it, because

I don't think I want these holes through...

-Yeah.

-..and if I can maybe trim it down, then it will give me

some excess bits to sample with and try some ideas out with,

cos I'd like to do something on it, maybe.

You know, if I can sandblast the surface or something,

-that could work quite well.

-So it sounds to me like there's a lot of

process to go on. You've got to cut it, refinish it, build a base to it.

-Yeah.

-Go on, then, hit me with a price tag.

I think, I think we're talking about 700 quid.

And do you reckon 700 quid gives you enough leeway to suck up a few

-problems along the way?

-I hope so, I hope so.

-OK.

-Yeah.

-OK. Brilliant.

Well, if you're taking it on, don't pick it up on your own!

-Thank you very much, yeah.

-And I'll see you when you've transformed it into something fantastic!

Yeah. Thanks for your help!

Pleasure!

I think Dan might be a little bit nervous about taking on that granite.

He's never worked with that material before.

But I have absolute faith in him.

He can turn his hand to anything and I reckon, with a bit of hard work,

we might be onto a winner.

Turning this cold hard slab of stone into a desirable designer table

will be no easy task.

To me it feels quite dated. But it's, you know,

how can I make it more contemporary and how can I make it into a really

saleable piece? Also,

I don't think it's going to be a very easy material to work with, so...

I'm a bit apprehensive about working with it, to be honest.

Daniel's on an adventure into the unknown.

The £700 fee may seem steep,

but it needs to cover any mishaps Daniel may have along the way.

Manchester. The city is an architectural mash up.

Its industrial past and cutting-edge present collide to create

an offbeat beauty. Much like the goings-on in this workshop.

The inventor of these steampunk automatons is Mark.

He's turned his childhood passion for making robots into a thriving business.

And I think they're bringing out the big kid in me.

They're great.

Sarah is on her way to Mark's workshop with the microscope and copper pipes.

Hopefully she's brought me something nice, vintage looking.

Something that says "robot" to me.

Hopefully it's something nice I can work with.

-Hi, Mark.

-Hello, Sarah.

How are you doing? Hold on, let me get that.

-Is it heavy?

-It is heavy.

-How are you doing?

-I'm fine, thank you.

-How are you?

-Nice to see you. Yeah, really well.

-I come with gifts.

-And this as well?

-Yeah.

-Wow.

-OK.

-What do you think?

I think it's lovely.

The microscope has certainly caught Mark's eye.

And I have to say, I'm pretty excited about this one.

-See...

-Oh, yeah.

That's what made me think of you.

Definitely. I'm glad you brought me something symmetrical,

-I like symmetry.

-That helps, doesn't it,

cos that really helps with the form of the robots, doesn't it?

Yeah. This... Obviously that is the head.

So we need a body.

-Yeah.

-Of a commensurate size.

And then a nice pair of legs.

So I imagine the robot's going to end up something like that kind of size.

I think that sounds like it's going to be really cool.

And I know that you make lots of robots that are just good looking.

Can you think of something that would make him useful as well?

I'd like a robot, a laser beam sword,

and a hyperspace time travel distortion ray, please.

The two functions that I use is either A, as an iPod dock.

-Right.

-The second option is lighting.

Ah, well, music player or lamp it is.

I think that I see quite a lot of lighting,

but I don't see quite as many things that are useful for music.

And so I think it would be good, with you, maybe to concentrate on music.

Giving it a purpose ups the sell-on value and the potential profit.

But to manufacture electrical items for sale,

they need to comply with UK safety regulations.

Fortunately, Mark's a qualified electrical engineer.

It's difficult to imagine exactly how it's going to look,

but can you put a price on roughly how it will be?

So all in, cost wise, for the parts,

probably talking £130 and then maybe £150 for my labour.

-OK.

-Which makes it £280, so if I did you a deal at £250,

-how does that sound?

-It sounds very interesting.

I think £250, it's going to be unique, original, and handmade.

-OK.

-I hope he doesn't give you any trouble!

-I'll see you later.

-Thank you so much.

-Bye-bye.

I can't wait to meet my new robot! He's got a lovely personality.

I don't know what his name is but he sounds like he's going to be exciting!

Mark's all-in price of £250 gives Sarah plenty of scope for profit.

My only concern is,

what happens if our little robot friend turns out to be an evil bot

intent on destroying the world with his hyperspace

time travel distortion ray?!

Oh, no, what have we done!

Sarah has dropped off the granite worktop with Daniel

and the microscope with Mark. Now back at home in Sussex,

she can get cracking on her own item, the broken-down chicken coop.

I have seen some really cool lampshades made out of wire

and I think that's the direction I'm going with these.

So I'm thinking about transforming this wire into hanging garden lampshades.

They sound like a winner, don't they?

They sound delightful.

I imagine a nice floral design, perhaps with dandelions and daffodils,

butterflies and birds.

A little rustic treat to add a quaint countryside touch to any lamp.

So that is a great piece of reclaimed wire and I'm just going to

wrap it round, get the right size,

and then trim it to see how big each lampshade's going to be.

Sarah is using wire reframes, purchased from the internet,

to add shape and solidity to the chicken wire.

And quite sensibly, she's wearing her safety gloves.

This is really quite fiddly.

Whose idea was this?

Come on, Sarah, stick with it!

This is really fiddly business.

These are way too heavy-duty.

These will be much finer.

The lampshade is beginning to take shape.

That's really come together quite well.

For inspiration with her floral design,

Sarah is using an old wildlife book featuring butterflies.

Ah, that's the one, look at that.

Oh, I don't like the look of that one.

Look at that mean thing on there, the death's-head!

DRAMATIC MUSIC

The death's-head? Oh, my giddy aunt!

This is becoming a Gothic monstrosity!

I want it to be dark and designer rather than kind of pretty and flowery.

Well, you've got it.

Sarah is tracing the death's-head picture

to transfer its outline to card.

I love tracing.

I'd forgotten how much fun it was.

Inspired by the black and gold colouring of the death's-head,

Sarah will create black and gold silhouettes of moths and leaves

to adorn the chicken wire lampshade.

This is a far cry from the hanging basket style lampshades

I originally envisioned.

These have definitely taken up the Gothic look.

In total, Sarah has spent £32 on this project

and she hopes to complete five lampshades.

But is there much of a market for death-head designs?

In Walthamstow, East London,

Daniel is carefully marking out his design on the granite for

what will be the tabletop surface.

His fabric and wallpaper prints are renowned for their elaborate

and elegant detail.

He has a passion for the glamour of Art Deco architecture

and he combines these aspects together in his furniture design.

The hard and heavy granite is all new material for Daniel,

and requires a new approach and skill set.

I've had it cut to size and I've started drawing out

a pattern onto it,

and I've got myself one of these rotary tools,

and I'm just etching into the surface with a hand tool.

There's a great deal of intricacy and precision involved in

the work that I do, and I kind of need to be a perfectionist.

I want to kind of always get things just right.

It's pretty terrifying when you're working with a piece of material

and I've only got this piece, so if I mess it up then

I've got to sort it out.

Daniel is scratching the surface of the granite as he plans

to add colour to the tabletop by painting these areas.

By marking the surface, he hopes the paint will permeate into the stone.

The granite colour as it is isn't maybe very fashionable.

I don't know what that's going to look like yet.

We'll have to see.

Daniel has been using a slide rule to ensure his chiselled lines

are straight, but now he has to do circles.

Fortunately, he has some offcuts to practise on.

In terms of the design, I'm aiming for sophistication,

I'm aiming for elegance and I just really,

really want it to be a luxury item.

Not seeing much sophistication and elegance there.

Not the best.

It's quite hard to draw a curved line,

especially as I've only been using this tool for a couple of hours.

Careful, now, Daniel.

One slip could mean disaster.

In Manchester,

at Mark's workshop,

the business of transforming this little microscope into the best

little robot this world has ever seen is getting underway.

The copper pipe picked up at the tip is being set aside,

but Mark will choose body parts from his treasure trove of bits and bobs.

I start the design process by figuring out what's going to work

in a sort of scale situation.

So I have lots of things around that will act as bodies.

It's sort of the wrong scale. The head gets lost a little bit.

Mark scours car-boot sales, scrapyards and charity shops

all over the north of England to find items

that capture his imagination.

This vintage electrical timer was found in a car-boot sale 18 miles

outside of Manchester.

So as we put that in there,

you can see that the scale of the head and body kind of works for me.

I always write a story for each robot.

And as we go through the process, little hints will come in,

like the fact he's from Merseyside.

The body's from Merseyside, so he might be a Scouse robot.

And so all these different things will work into the story of the robot.

So he's a Scouse electrician, 70 years old,

now he is employed as a DJ in Grimsby.

I think it's time to give my little friend a funky DJ name.

-He's Wonky-eyed Joe.

-Wonky-eyed Joe?

I was hoping for something a little cooler than that.

Microbot or Scopatron or Star Slider.

Old wonky eyes is about to have a sore neck too.

That went very well. It's a nice straight cut.

Joe's microscope head needs to be secured

to his electricity timer body.

The timer's casing is made of Bakelite.

This early plastic can be hazardous so it's best to leave it to professionals like Mark.

And if you're dealing with it a lot, you should wear appropriate dust protection.

That's why I hate this stuff.

Bakelite was the precursor to plastic.

1950s. A lot of this stuff didn't actually survive. Because it's

so brittle, it would just break.

So there's actually a crack along the Bakelite there.

So when I'm drilling this hole,

I'm going to have to be really careful that I don't actually

make that crack worse,

make the thing snap in half.

So I'm just going to take it really slow.

Slow and steady, Mark, slow and steady.

Don't you fret, my wonky-eyed friend,

everything will be all right.

If it's not bad enough that I'm all of a tiz about my little robot pal,

I've also got to worry about Sarah's Gothic death-head lampshades.

Well, I think this might come together.

I've got quite a bit of chicken wire

so I'm hoping to be able to make five lampshades.

Maybe make a bit of money.

Well, that would be nice.

But let's not count our chickens before they're hatched.

The lampshades are far from the Gothic monstrosities I feared.

The death-head inspired design has brought the chicken wire to life.

The lampshades have been sprayed gold to match

the cardboard cut-out silhouettes. And while I'm not sure how much

shade they would actually provide, they'll certainly light up

any lamp in need of a stylish touch.

Well, they're not exactly designer, but my death-head moth lamps, well,

they're something original to make out of a bit of chicken wire.

I reckon there might be a bit of profit to be made here.

I know some really lovely lighting stores and I'm hoping that

if they're not too expensive, then maybe they might take all five of these.

Sarah first spied the chicken coop just as Anthony was about to sling it in the skip.

Did the chickens move out recently?

-Yes.

-I'll keep my gloves on, then.

The chickens moved out and the death-head moths moved in.

And great news.

Sarah has sold all five lampshades to a vintage and antique lifestyle store -

The Pack House, in Surrey.

Now she's at Anthony's home to show him what became of the chicken coop.

-Hi, Anthony.

-Hi, how are you?

-I'm really well. How are you doing?

I'm very good, thanks.

So I told you I'd be back in touch if I could do anything with

-your old chicken run.

-Yeah.

-Now, I know you and your nephew were clearing it out.

-Yes.

-But after you got back in your van, did you say,

I wonder what she's going to do with that?

I thought you were absolutely crazy, to be honest.

Well, I did have a couple of moments where I think I agreed with you

with that, because it was something that I wanted to make into something quite smart.

-Yeah.

-So I did actually hatch a plan and I turned your chicken wire

into lampshades.

Wow. They're brilliant!

Reclaimed it all and cut out some moths.

There's a moth called the death-head which is quite a big moth,

so it was a good one to use.

I'm really impressed by that.

Aww, I'm really pleased you like them.

I managed to make five of them and there's a shop down in Farnham in

Surrey who liked the look of them.

So they bought them as a whole set and I've got some profit to

share with you, in fact. I've got a little bit here, I've got

£3 there.

-Yeah.

-And another £140 there.

Wow. I'm flabbergasted by that.

-Thank you very much.

-What are you going to do with that?

I might take my girlfriend out and have something to eat.

Maybe a nice meal, something like that.

Or I might just not tell her and spend it myself!

You know, your secret's safe with me, and all of them,

so, great to catch up.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

In total, Sarah spent £32 making the lampshades.

She sold all five of them for £175,

leaving Anthony with £143 to take his girlfriend out to dinner.

Well, he'd better do, otherwise never mind the chicken house,

he'll be in the doghouse.

In Walthamstow the Granite slab has tested

Daniel's skills and ingenuity to the max.

Working with granite was pretty hard. It's such a dense material,

I didn't know how to do anything with it, basically.

I wasn't sure how to cut it, how to get pattern onto it.

So that was a real challenge.

And now, Sarah is here to cast judgment.

It was crunch time for the granite.

I left Dan with a tricky material to work with, and a huge £700 budget.

I just can't wait to see what he's managed to do with it all.

This has been a creative collision between the immovable object that is

the granite, and the irresistible force of Daniel's craftsmanship.

My, oh, my. This is stunning.

Daniel's signature style of traditional Art Deco,

fused with the industrial-inspired design,

is writ large across this coffee table.

Unable to achieve the intricacy and precision he required with

his engraving tool, Daniel scrapped this method.

The abandoned concept is on the underside of the table.

Sometimes taking a wrong turn is the only way to find the right direction.

He created this new design on his computer and used a specialised

industrial printer to transfer it onto the reverse side of the granite.

This was a new technique for Daniel, and thankfully, it worked a treat.

-Dan?

-Hello.

-Oh, Dan.

-OK, here's the granite.

Oh, it looks amazing!

That looks like you've tattooed it, you've given it edge.

It's really cool.

Thanks, Sarah. We had a lot of issues with it.

We tried other approaches,

we were sort of engraving into it

and then putting stuff into the engraving.

But it was just looking, it just looked too naive,

and it didn't look sophisticated enough.

So the process that we used in the end is sort of like

a digital process,

but it gets the ink really into the grain of the granite,

and then we sealed it in with a stone sealant as well,

so it should be resistant to sort of coffee stains

and things like that as well.

I had no idea you were going to be able to produce something

this finely marked and such a strong piece.

Well, neither did I!

It's massive relief all round.

The £700 spend Sarah gave Daniel was generous enough to allow for

a little trial and error, meaning he's come in on budget.

I think that you have done, you know, literally the unthinkable with that.

You have turned it into something that is really desirable now.

So well done. I'm amazed.

-Great.

-Thanks so much.

-Thanks, Sarah.

-Brilliant.

-Take care.

That coffee table is fantastic.

It's cutting-edge, it's great design, it's out there,

but not too far out there.

And the main thing is, it's got Dan written all over it.

When Andrew came to the dump,

little did he suspect that Sarah would pounce upon him.

-What is it?

-It's a piece of granite, it used to be my desk.

But he was quite happy she did.

Driving here, it just seemed a shame it was going on the tip.

So in meeting Sarah, she'll take it away,

hopefully do something fantastic with it.

You want something fantastic?

You got it.

Sarah posted images of the table online in order to entice a buyer.

And now, she's at Andrew's home in Cheshire to tell him what became

of his slab of granite.

-Hi, Andrew.

-Hi, how are you?

-I'm really well. How are you doing?

-Yeah, great, thank you, great.

So this is the house where those

-great lumps of granite were coming from, is it?

-It is, yeah.

We took it out, it was part of my office and it all had to come out because

we were building the extension round the back,

so it all had to be taken out, unfortunately, and you got it.

Well, I was really pleased to see what you were dropping off.

Did you wonder what we might do with it after it went away?

I'd always wanted to turn it into a desk, so I will be quite interested to see what you did with it.

Well, I've got some pictures here,

I took it to a guy named Dan who has given it his own twist.

He's made it into that.

Wow, that is really, really not what I expected at all.

-Wow, it's cool.

-It is a lovely piece.

He has created a great steel frame for it, it floats above the floor,

-it's a luxury item.

-I think it's fantastic.

-Do you like it?

I do, I think it's really fantastic, yeah. It's very unusual and it's not...

I wouldn't have thought that's what would happen to it.

Yeah, quite blown away, really.

-It's great.

-It wasn't a cheap thing to get done.

No, I imagine not.

-It actually cost £700 to make it look like that.

-Oh, wow.

But there's good news. I managed to sell it.

-OK.

-At a little bit of profit.

Not a heap, but I have got £50 here for you.

Wow, it's a good start. Nice to have some profit.

Yeah, well, is there anything you can think of that that might help towards?

I'm going to buy a 1960s hi-fi desk for my record collection.

Fantastic! What a great thing.

Well, I'm so pleased if that goes towards that,

then that sounds like a lovely thing.

-That's what it'll be for.

-Thank you so much for all your time...

Thank you very much. it's been great.

..at the recycling centre and here, and it was lovely to catch up.

-And you, see you soon.

-Thank you. Bye-bye.

-Bye.

Sarah spent £700 on Daniel's transformation.

It sold online to a private buyer for £750,

leaving Andrew £50 of profit.

In Manchester, at Mark's workshop of robotic wonders,

Wonky-eyed Joe is having his bolts tightened in preparation

for Sarah's arrival.

Well, I've come to see Mark and to meet the robot of my dreams.

I think he's going to be tall, good-looking,

probably quite intelligent because he's made from a microscope.

Do you ever feel like you're being watched?

Never mind wonky-eyed,

I'm starry-eyed with excitement to meet my mechanical mate.

He's fantastic.

Using the microscope Sarah found as a starting point,

Mark has used other salvaged items to make this cool and quirky robot.

Joe has been carefully crafted to ensure

that all the disparate elements

sit in robotic harmony.

He stands atop a vintage speaker which now works as

a smartphone music player.

Joe is a weird and wonderful delight.

-Mark?

-Hello.

Hello, Sarah, how are you?

Wow! I'm really well.

Lovely to see you.

Lovely to see you. Meet Wonky-eyed Joe.

He is amazing!

-Thank you.

-Hasn't he got...

-Is it a he?

-Yeah, it is a he, I think.

He's got his own little story.

Talk me through the story.

Thank you for adopting me.

I make up a story for each robot.

So what... Let me read it.

Oh, he's had an interesting life!

Never feed him eggs Benedict!

He's obviously a DJ because he's got the headphones on.

And he is a fully functioning iPod dock.

-No way!

-So you plug your phone in there.

Play some music.

Hey, I recognise that tune.

It's got a good toe-tapping beat.

Joe is not only a music player, he has also had a radio tuner fitted.

Did it give you any trouble?

Because I can see all of our microscope in there.

How did you get on building him?

I think the hardest thing was that this part here was the thing that...

it fitted in with the aesthetics and the period of this piece.

-Yeah.

-But it's made from Bakelite, so it's very, very brittle.

So I basically had to build a sort of skeleton inside this to make sure

that everything held together.

So there's a lot of work that's gone on inside there?

That was the big work, that's the largest amount of work,

-getting that sorted out.

-And did that affect budget?

Cos I think it was £250 to construct something like this,

but, you know, I think you've gone, you've gone way over the top,

-haven't you?

-Yeah, but I'm happy with that, it's fine.

-Absolutely fine.

-And are you pleased with him?

Because I think he is like really packing it in there

with personality, with all the stuff he does.

Are you pleased with how he turned out?

I'm very, very pleased with him.

I think this is one of the best ones I've ever built.

Lovely. Well, somebody's going to have a lot of fun with him.

And I hope we're going to make a little bit of money,

cos I cannot wait to show the woman who used to use these for you know,

identifying beetles...

-Yeah.

-..to show her this. It's going to be great.

Well, Mark has really managed to pack in the personality.

He's given him good looks, he's beautiful, he's useful,

and I reckon that means he's going to sell.

When she first met Sarah, Gail had a trunkful of junk.

So what are you dropping off today, then?

An old microscope.

The scientific instrument certainly caught Sarah's eye.

Is it something that, rather than putting it into the small appliance tip,

I could take away and do something with?

Definitely, definitely. Yes.

Sarah is super excited to show Gail how her microscope

became a mega-cool bot.

After Sarah shared photos online,

she made a super quick sale to collector, Tim.

He's great. Absolutely brilliant.

Now Sarah's on her way to show Gail how her microscope was transformed.

Hi, Gail. Hello, how are you?

-I'm fine, thank you. How are you?

-Yeah, very well, very well.

When I last saw you, you were busily throwing away an old microscope.

-Yes.

-Did you wonder what might happen to it after it left?

Well, yes, I don't know what you could do with a microscope, really.

Yes, especially one that looked like that, so...

Well, luckily, I'm very well-connected...

-Yes.

-..and there are people who see things like that and just think,

I know exactly what to do with it.

And I took your microscope to a man called Mark who is in Manchester

and I've got some pictures of how it ended up.

-Are you ready for this?

-Go on.

That is fantastic!

Mark has utilised all those lovely bits out of your microscope

to make somebody with real personality.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

-Do you approve?

-I do. That's brilliant.

But he was... A few pictures were shared on the internet

and somebody just fell in love with him.

So he's gone off to a new home.

We've made some money for you as well.

Here is £50.

Brilliant! Well, I'm glad he got a new home because he looks fantastic.

Yes, I'd like him as well. So, yeah, I can understand why somebody wanted him.

£50. Have you got any ideas what you might do that?

Not really, no.

Go towards new plants for the garden, perhaps.

I don't know. I'll see.

Absolute pleasure. Lovely to catch up.

And you. Thank you.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.

Mark charged Sarah £250 to create Wonky-eyed Joe.

Sarah sold him for £300, leaving a £50 profit for Gail.

Sarah saved three unwanted items from the skip.

And now, instead of being turfed, they've been totally revamped.

Well, I'm absolutely delighted with those transformations.

It never fails to amaze me what can be done with a little bit of imagination

and a lot of hard work.