Episode 15 The Repair Shop

Welcome to The Repair Shop,

where cherished family heirlooms are brought back to life.

Anything can happen. This is the workshop of dreams.

Home to furniture restorer Jay Blades.

Nowadays, things are not built to last,

so we've become part of this throwaway culture.

It's all about preserving and restoring.

We bring the old back to new.

Working alongside Jay will be some

of the country's leading craftspeople.

I like making things with my hands.

I love to see how things work and I want to know how things work.

Whether it's a Rembrandt or somebody's family piece,

every painting deserves the same.

Each bringing their own unique set of skills...

You're about to witness some magic.

..they will resurrect, revive...

Oh, yes.

..and rejuvenate treasured possessions

and irreplaceable pieces of family history.

Oh, my goodness me. It looks like it's new.

Bringing both the objects...

Oh, wow.

..and the memories that they hold back to life.

Oh, thank you.

Today in The Repair Shop,

Jay and Tim face the music to get a vintage gramophone looking

and sounding like new.

Oh, no. Look. This spring has broken.

Two pieces have been riveted together.

And soft toy specialists Amanda and Julie take on a young lady suffering

the effects of years of love and affection.

That was a very fiddly job,

putting the detail of the nail in place

and I had to hold my breath for that,

but I hope it will have been worth it.

But first on board the good ship Repair Shop today

is Simon Baird, with a naughty nautical problem for Jay and Will.

Hello.

-Well, what have we got here then? What's this?

-It's a model boat.

-Wow, seriously broken.

-It's had a hard life.

I was showing it to someone and it got sat on.

-It got sat on?

-Yeah.

-Must be quite painful?

-Yeah, that's right.

-And these are built and designed to be in the water.

Yes, they work really well.

I was given it for Christmas when I was about seven

and my brother got one the same. His was green, mine was blue.

That's me and my brother aged...

so he must've been about five and I was probably about seven when we were given them.

He's got the green one.

Exactly, so that's how it would look.

So who gave it to you, then?

Uncle Bill, he's called. Uncle Bill, his wife's Auntie Barbara.

Uncle Bill died, unfortunately, but Auntie Barbara's still here.

So, that's Uncle Bill, yes.

And that was his boat. So his boat's Puddle Duck.

-A proper boat.

-That's right. So he and Auntie Barbara used to sail to

France and all over the place on that and they used to take us sailing out on that.

And what was the boat called?

-Puddle Duck.

-Puddle Duck.

-Like Jemima Puddle-Duck.

-Yes.

-Wow.

-And so that's Barbara and Bill together.

-OK.

-And Auntie Barbara's still alive.

-She's still alive, yes.

She would love to see my two boys sailing a boat that Uncle Bill

sorted out in the first place.

So, there we have it, Will.

That's the lady that you've got to get this working for.

-Right.

-Right. If you leave it with us,

Will's going to work his magic and we'll definitely get back to you.

All right, thank you very much indeed.

All right.

It would mean a huge amount to have the boat repaired.

Auntie Barbara lives nearby and she would love to come and see the boat

sailing in Poole Park with my children,

like she used to come and watch me when I was their age,

so it would be fantastic for us all to be sailing it together.

I've seen these in the pond where I grew up, people using these.

I never knew how they steered them and stuff like that.

-I didn't realise that you grew up in a pond.

-I did grow up in a pond.

Can't you tell by my webbed feet?

But these are quite cool, man.

-Really cool.

-How do you steer it though?

I think you can just work out the direction of the wind,

set the sails in a certain way and then just hope for the best.

OK.

So you can do this one, yeah?

I'm going to get it on the bench and then have a better look at it.

At some point, there would have been some rings,

metal hoops running across the bottom, but they're no longer there.

So my plan is to make up some new hoops.

I don't have the know-how or the materials,

but I know a man who does.

Over to resident horologist, Steve.

Small favour.

Would you be able to make me four of those, please?

-How many?

-Four.

-Yep.

-Yep.

-No probs.

Yep, yep, yep. Lovely. Thanks, Steve.

So, the hardest part without any instructions or maps or drawings

is to work out where everything goes

and make sure that it actually stays afloat.

With no nautical experience, Will's all at sea with the rigging.

I need to see about fixing this bit here.

I think that's called the mast. I think that's called the mast.

Hmm.

Next to arrive,

Jane Trott and her husband Robert have come to see soft-toy maestros,

Amanda and Julie,

to see if they can breathe new life into a very special family heirloom.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Who have we got here?

We've got Lucy doll here.

-Oh.

-Oh, look at her.

Lucy actually belonged to my dear Mum, who sadly passed away in 2012.

She was given to my mum on her fourth birthday in 1932,

which makes Lucy almost 85 years old.

I knew, because she'd actually told me that she wanted her to go to her

great-granddaughter, Lucy.

Oh, that's lovely. That's lovely.

So, we've got Lucy doll.

And we've got a great-granddaughter called Lucy Victoria

and I felt a sort of responsibility

to make sure that she got her and I think she has been

mended before, because this leg is adrift.

We only have one hand.

-You haven't got the other one, by any chance?

-No, it wasn't with her.

We will do our best to source some hands.

Over the decades, I think it's gone somewhere.

Have you bought any clothes with you for Lucy to wear?

A little dress that was mine.

That's over 50 years ago, giving away my age now.

-And this little cardigan was actually worn by my daughter...

-Lovely.

..so I thought it would be nice to bring all the generations together.

So, we need to get all her limbs back in place.

-That would be lovely.

-Make the repairs that are required.

We'll do our best to put her back together for you.

That would be wonderful. Thank you so much.

-She'll be fine.

-I'm sure she will be.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-Bye.

-Bye.

-See you later.

I hope that Lucy will look as she looked

when she was cuddled by my own mother,

so it will be lovely to pass her on to my granddaughter

and see her looking lovely in her arms

as she did once in my mum's arms at the same age.

I think we've got ourselves quite a big job here.

We've got quite a lot of damage here, with tearing.

This will be because it's such an old fabric.

It's just beginning to perish.

And, of course, we need to sort out

what we're going to do about her hands,

so hopefully she'll have some pretty little hands coming out from

-under her cardigan.

-Yes, it's going to be a busy day.

It is going to be a busy day.

Yep.

To get an idea of the full extent of the damage,

first Amanda and Julie have to painstakingly take Lucy apart.

From every stitch...

to every piece of decades-old stuffing.

You can see how sort of dusty and not terribly pleasant

and quite hard this stuffing is.

Now Lucy and the full extent of the job ahead are laid bare.

Having looked at Lucy's body, very, very fragile,

so we've made the decision that

we're going to make new covers for her limbs

and put all of the pieces, her original pieces, back inside those.

But she will be much stronger that way and better for a child who's going to be handling her.

Here's the original arm inside

and we're now just re-stuffing it and she'll have nice

clean, new, strong arms.

We're really tight for time.

We just can't stop. We've just got to keep going.

Also underway,

Will has been getting to know the ropes of the treasured childhood sailing boat.

He's reached a critical point in the repair.

So, I'm about to fix the broken mast.

The plan is to use some of this bamboo here,

drill a hole into the top piece and the bottom piece

and glue it on the inside in place

and that should give it the strength that it's going to need.

Able Seaman Will is roping in the assistance of some of the other Repair Shop crew

to get this vintage vessel shipshape and Bristol fashion,

including Chief Engineer Steve and even Captain Jay.

How can I help you?

First of all, marvel at this. Ready?

That's cool, isn't it?

The problem is, this rigging is pretty ropey,

so ideally I'd like some...

-String.

-String. Something that is waxed.

-Do you have anything?

-Yes.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Buttoning twine. There you go.

It's strong. You won't to be able to pop that.

So, my plan is I'm going to start on the rigging bit by bit rather than

just snip it all off,

because I could just take off all the old rigging now

and just be left with three sails and have no idea how to put it back

together, whereas if I do it section by section,

then at least I know what goes where, basically.

As long as you understand what you're talking about.

-But you've got the buttoning twine now, you can use that.

-I've got buttoning twine. Cool.

-Thanks a lot, Jay.

-You're welcome, sir.

-How are you getting on?

-Slowly getting there. Look at that!

Oh, well done, you!

I think it should be relatively straightforward from here.

Brilliant. I've got your rings and eyelets.

-Wow.

-There's some spares there as well.

-Amazing.

-Right.

-Well, thanks for that, Steve.

-No probs.

I'll be sailing on from here, then.

STEVE CHUCKLES

I thought it would be nice to put a name on the front of the boat.

I don't know if I mentioned this to Simon or not,

but I thought it would be nice to call it the name of Simon's uncle's boat, Puddle Duck.

The thing is, do I call it Puddle Duck

or do I call it Puddle Duck II?

I think that would be a really nice touch.

Expert at tackling the problems others fear to fix,

no restoration project fazes the Repair Shop team.

And the next arrival is no exception.

Right, what do we have here?

It's a gramophone.

A gramophone. Like, one of those gramophones.

-A real proper wind-up gramophone.

-A proper one.

-Yes, a proper wind-up gramophone.

Gillian Lamb's very special musical memento is in need of a tune-up from

Jay and gramophone guru, Tim.

When I'm thinking gramophones,

I'm thinking of a big microphone sticking out.

Yes, it doesn't have a dramatic horn.

There's two doors at the front here

and you can adjust the tone of the sound by

opening or closing the doors.

And it originally belonged to my grandmother.

After my grandmother, it went to my aunt and it's at her house

that I remember it most.

So it was clearly a very important part of their life.

Do you remember it being played?

I do remember it being played, yes.

And I did go and stay there.

It was full of life and fun and activity and this was part of it.

That's why it's special.

What's the problem with it, then?

Well, it doesn't run very happily

and you can't hear the records any more.

You can just hear a scratching noise and it's such a shame because

we have a collection of records from that time...

-OK.

-..which it would be lovely to play again.

-Can we get this working?

-It can be done.

It can be done.

My guess would be that there should be a base on it.

Do you remember there ever being a bottom to it?

No, I don't.

Ah. I think that's probably gone missing.

Can we tip it upside down?

If we look underneath, you can see better

that this is an internal horn.

I've got a record over here.

Let's see what we get out of it.

All right.

SCRATCHING

BURST OF MUSIC

MUSIC FADES AWAY

Hmm. I mean,

we might get it going a bit better by winding it up but the danger in

winding it up when you've got a load of old grease in the spring barrel

is that you effectively distort the spring.

-We're going to get it working, are we?

-We're going to see what we can do.

I would love it to be working again.

I associate myself and my childhood with this gramophone and the happy

times I had staying with my aunt and the fun it was being with her

and this was part of it. It's a joy.

Leave it with us. We will get it fully restored and playing happily again.

That would be marvellous. Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-Thank you. Thank you.

-See you later on.

-Will do.

It would be wonderful to see it repaired and hear it working properly,

so I feel really quite excited at the prospect of having it back in use.

OK, right, so, I'll drop the motor out, take it apart,

clean years and years of old grease...

When you say "drop the motor out", that sounds like a mechanic's term.

You're really going to take the motor out?

Yes. Yes. This is the thing that people often find hard to understand

about this is it uses no electricity.

It reproduces the sound entirely by vibrating a column of air and the

motor is, of course, essentially clockwork.

So until you've taken the motor out, you're not really going to know what's wrong with it.

No, I'll drop the motor out.

And then you can give me the frame and I can work on that.

-Yes.

-We'd best crack on then, eh?

There we go.

Take this out.

There.

There it is, the heart of the beast.

A Garrard number 20 motor.

You can see all the muck and rubbish around here.

I mean, there's no damage as far as I can see to any of the gears

and that's always a good sign.

While Tim takes care of the motor, it's Jay's job to restore the case.

There we go.

-See you later.

-See you soon.

The plan is to clean this and then just give it a wax.

This is Will's secret recipe mix for cleaning.

He doesn't tell anybody what it is. It's very top-secret.

Now, that is what you call dirt.

For this delicate restoration project...

That's a bit better.

..Tim's calling on all of his 50 years' experience.

The art is knowing exactly where to hit it.

Anyone can go mad with a hammer.

It takes a true craftsman to know exactly where to tap it.

This is the point where it will fly all over the room.

With a fair wind behind him,

Will has almost reached harbour with the treasured 50-year-old sailboat

that owner Simon wants to pass on to his children.

It's the finishing touches now.

The black paint is completely dried,

so I'm just using some white pigment just to sharpen up round the edges,

to really bring out the word Puddle Duck.

Time is of the essence.

With no idea about Will's extra Puddle Duck finishing touch,

Simon has returned and he's not alone.

I'm feeling very excited about seeing the boat again.

I've brought Auntie Barbara and she gave it to me with Uncle Bill

-many years ago.

-We haven't seen it for a long time.

-No. No, been up in the loft.

-And I had no idea that it was broken.

-How are we doing?

-Hello, very well, thank you. Very nice to see you again.

Likewise. Who have we got here, then?

This is Auntie Barbara who we were talking about last time.

-Hello. Pleased to meet you.

-How are you doing?

-All right?

-Yes, thank you.

-Come this way, then.

So, you know who Auntie Barbara is, then?

-I know who Auntie Barbara is.

-Yeah.

-Yes, I know.

Are you feeling a sweat? I can see a sweat, the beads are coming off.

-The beads of sweat.

-I'm looking forward to seeing it.

-Ready.

-Oh, my goodness.

-Wow.

-It hasn't done that for a very long time.

-Oh, my goodness.

Oh, that's lovely. I'm so thrilled.

-Because you never saw it broken, did you?

-No.

But it's fixed now. It's all fixed.

How long did it take you to do all this?

Five or ten minutes. No, I'm only joking.

-He is being modest.

-It was a labour of love.

Thank you so much.

I think I could probably rig up an actual full-sized yacht now.

So I'm in the market to buy one just for that.

Oh, it's lovely.

Now, you had a boat, did you not?

Did you have a boat?

And did your boat have a name?

-Yes.

-What was your boat's name?

Puddle Duck.

Well, I thought it would be quite nice to have on the front...

-Oh!

-Look at that!

-Oh, how lovely.

Puddle Duck II. It's lovely.

That's amazing. Thank you.

Thank you.

Lovely.

Uncle Bill would be thrilled. He'd be absolutely thrilled.

Absolutely lovely.

So, the big test now is to see if it floats.

We've filled up a sink. You've got to be the first person to try it out.

Or it might be Auntie Barbara.

-I think probably Auntie Barbara.

-I think Auntie Barbara.

-There you go.

Go for it. Yeah, let's see.

-Oh.

-Yay.

There we go.

Amazing.

I'm feeling amazed and astounded.

-Yes, absolutely lovely.

-I couldn't believe they could do as good a job as that.

-No, absolutely lovely.

-It looks incredible.

-It does.

-And to have the name on the front as well.

-That was...

-Just perfect.

-Look at that.

-Just like 30 years ago.

Bill would have been absolutely thrilled.

-I'm sure he would.

-He would.

Cruising smoothly on with the gramophone,

Tim has prised apart the 80-year-old power source.

And you can see the mainspring in there which is very dry.

Hardly any grease on it at all.

Connected to the handle on the gramophone,

the wound spring creates the energy to rotate the turntable.

Not too bad. I think we may get away without having to replace it.

Uh-oh. Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Sometime in the past,

this spring has broken and you can see where these two pieces have been

overlapped and riveted together.

So, the only option to do is take this spring out

and throw it away and replace it with a brand-new mainspring,

at the end of which,

with a fighting chance and a following wind,

this is going to work properly.

Meanwhile, Jay has hatched a plan to recreate the missing base.

-Will.

-And he's got just the man for the job.

Ideas. I need your young, fresh, talented...

-Hey.

-..mind.

-You want something, right, you've got to flatter me.

So, there's a plinth needed for the bottom because the doors,

it drags like that.

Right, so you want me to make a plinth.

-Yes, please.

-Now?

-Well, I'll give you a hand. Yeah, now, today.

-Yeah.

-Today.

-Let's work as a team, yeah?

-That's why I gave you a compliment.

-High five. Yeah!

Oh, it's nice, isn't it?

I would give you a hand but I'm having tea and biscuits.

You look like you've got it under control, anyway.

That's really... Thank you for that, Jay.

That's all right, any time. What are you doing, really?

Well, this is winding the new spring into the spring barrel.

-There.

-Have you done it?

-Right,

what we do need to do is pack the graphite grease in there and you

basically put the stuff on like buttering a scone.

So you've got to get it all in there, all in those bits, yeah.

Yeah. Put plenty of it in because it's probably going to be another

80 years before it gets serviced again.

That's the worst of it done. All I've got to do now is put it back together now.

-That looks good.

-So how are you getting on?

Slowly but surely.

If anything, it should be semi flush at the back and more out here.

This side sticks out further than that side.

All right, all we have to do is that.

-Yeah, exactly.

-Just a little bit of that.

Et voila.

Also on the mend,

83-year-old Lucy's remade limbs are ready to be stitched back together.

And I'll get on and sort out her nails.

OK. A little manicure, then.

Yeah.

Julie can now turn her attention to Lucy's missing hand.

For a perfect fit,

she is painting a reproduction pair of hands to blend in seamlessly.

That was a very fiddly job,

painting the hands and putting the detail of the nail in place

and I had to hold my breath for that.

I hope it would have been worth it.

This is the original vest that we're putting back onto her now.

I hope it still fits her.

-Yes.

-She hasn't put on too much weight.

That will show whether we've done a good job.

We've got the body now to the point where we can put the head back on.

This is quite tricky because the head is made of china.

85 years old.

It's a two-man job.

We can wiggle it once she's in there.

OK. We've got a couple more stitches to pop in,

clothes on and she'll be ready to go home.

Dressed in owner Jane's and her daughter's baby clothes,

Lucy is ready to be loved by a fourth generation of the family.

Hi, I'm so excited.

-Are you ready?

-I am ready.

OK. Let's take it off.

Oh, my goodness.

She has all her limbs oh and she is ready to be loved again.

Absolutely gorgeous.

Thank you so much.

-No, you're welcome.

-A lovely way to remember Mum and how thrilled she

would be to think that she's going to be cuddled again and by her

-great-granddaughter.

-That's amazing.

-And with the same name.

-Oh, that's lovely.

-We feel honoured to be part of that.

I just feel very emotional.

It is absolutely beyond what I hoped for.

I'd never seen her perfect

but today, to me, she's absolutely perfect.

I could have asked for nothing more.

-It's a fantastic surprise for my granddaughter.

-Ah.

Back in the workshop,

another treasured family member is

-almost ready to play sweet music once again.

-Oh.

That is beautiful.

-It comes up.

-I'm pretty certain that would have been something

very similar to what it must have looked like when it was new.

Cool. And then obviously like, the door, it doesn't pull, really.

That is lovely. That is very pretty.

Now, the final stage, marrying Jay's case with Tim's fine-tuned motor...

Like so.

..before Gillian arrives to be reunited with her grandmother's cherished gramophone.

Voila.

-There's only one thing to do, now. The acid test.

-What's that?

Play a record on it, shall we?

Oh, no, no. Let's wait until Gillian comes and then we'll play a record for her.

I trust that you've got it right anyway.

Let us hope your trust is not misplaced.

-Hello.

-Thank you. Hello, Jay, nice to see you again.

-Likewise.

-Hi.

-Hello, Gill.

Good to see you again.

So, when was the last time you heard this gramophone play?

Oh, decades.

Let's see what we've done.

Oh, it's beautiful, isn't it?

That is, I'm pretty certain, what this would have looked like originally.

Well, it looks so lovely.

There you go.

I'm waiting to hear it play.

-That's what I want to do.

-Well, shall we wind it up and put a record on?

-Shall we?

-Oh, yes.

-Shall we do that?

SCRATCHING

# Somewhere over the rainbow... #

Oh, yes.

# Way up high

# There's a land... #

The memories cut in as soon as the needle drops on the disc,

because there's several seconds of scratching noise

before you hear any music.

It sounds good and it looks so good.

-It does look good, doesn't it?

-Yeah, something really to be proud of.

Well, the look is all down to this gentleman here.

It's a team effort.

We all done good on this one.

And it's not just something to look at, it's something to use and enjoy.

MUSIC PLAYS

You know, my ancestors are sadly no longer with us and I shall have to convey all this

to my own children and hope that they will treasure it as I have done,

because I think for them, it's a window on the past,

to look at this and to use it.

No, it is a window to the past. It's unbelievable.

You feel quite emotional,

because it takes you back such a long time to when that was

an everyday occurrence.

So, it was a special moment to hear.

I'm thrilled to have it back.

It's been polished and cared for and enhanced in every way.

It's wonderful.

The thing I really love when you see something that hasn't gone for

decades, charming it back into life,

making it do what it did 80 years ago again.

It's a great... It gets me every time, that feeling.

Righty ho.

As one final treasured family heirloom heads home,

restored for future generations,

the team hang up their tools until next time in The Repair Shop.