Welcome to The Repair Shop,
where cherished family heirlooms are brought back to life...
This is the workshop of dreams.
..home to furniture restorer Jay Blades.
Nowadays, everybody spends a fortune on stuff that, once it's broken,
they just bin it. But everybody has something that means too much to be
thrown away, and that's where we come in.
Working alongside Jay will be some of the country's leading
craftspeople. Every piece has its own story.
It's amazing to think that some of my work becomes part of that story.
I've always played with things, I've always repaired things,
and I just love it. There is a real pleasure in bringing people's pieces
back to life again.
Each with their own unique set of skills...
I can't wait to get started. ..they will resurrect,
revive... Come on, man! ..and rejuvenate
treasured possessions and irreplaceable pieces
of family history... Wow! ..bringing both the objects...
She's fantastic! That's just taken me back 50 years.
..and the memories that they hold... Oh, yes!
..back to life. Oh, my God!
This place is filthy!
LAUGHTER
In The Repair Shop today,
furniture restorers Will and Sonnaz join forces...
I'm Will. Hello, Will, nice to meet you.
Sonnaz. ..making big improvements to a very small chair.
So, we've got creative freedom. Yes, you have. Yeah. Exciting.
Yeah! And clock expert Steve swaps time for money,
as he tackles a century-old cash register.
I've no idea where to start on this! LAUGHTER
I thought as much!
But first into The Repair Shop, Richard and Lesley Bower from Cornwall.
Hello. Hello. How are we doing? Fine, thanks.
I'm Jay. Jay, I'm Richard. All right, Richard, how are we doing?
I'm very well, thank you. So what have we got in the bag?
Three guesses! Well, it's quite small -
I would say it looks like a camera. Yeah, it does indeed, doesn't it?
Is it a camera? Shall I open it? Yes, please. OK.
Whoa! OK.
Don't tell me this is a record player. It's a record player, isn't it? It's a record player.
Oh, that is cool. Tim, you've got to see this. This is one for you, mate.
Hello. Have a look at this. Gramophone expert Tim Weeks has been
hooked on classic record players since 1963,
when his father bought him his first machine at a jumble sale.
It's a record player, but a portable one.
But when you put the record on... METALLIC GRINDING
Cor, blimey. ..it grinds to a halt.
Yeah. If I might intervene at this point...
Yeah, please! ..this is called a Peter Pan.
This particular model was made only in 1924.
So how come you guys have got this? What's the history behind it?
Well, it was given to me by my father...
Right. ..and he told me stories about taking it out on picnics.
OK. He was courting my mother at the time,
and he would play these records,
perhaps some Ella Fitzgerald or something... Yeah, yeah.
..on a portable record player.
But I think it was given to him by my grandfather, his father.
OK. He was a naval captain, so he would go from Liverpool down to
Southampton, then down to Tenerife, and then the Ivory Coast,
in West Africa. He had it and then he passed it to your dad, and then your dad... To my dad, yeah.
..has given it to you. Yeah, and now I've got a...
we've got two daughters, and one grandson,
and so, obviously, when time's right...
Yeah. ..I'm just dying to, you know, pass it on.
And it did work. I think our daughters might have had something
to do with it! It's always a little bit worrying when you hear that
someone's children have been playing with things...
OK! ..because children can be remarkably destructive creatures! LAUGHTER
So, what do you reckon, Tim? Can we sort this out?
Well, if the motor's all there inside... Maybe? Yeah.
OK. Yeah. Well, what I'd say is... 75%. Thank you.
LAUGHTER Thank you for bringing it in... Thank you.
..and leave it with us. OK. We'll get it sorted.
It's going to happen! All right. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Tim's first task is to take the record player apart,
starting with the sound box,
which passes vibrations from the stylus to the horn.
Something very peculiar has been done to this.
Someone seems to have put what looks like a cardboard -
or possibly it's felt - washer in there.
But if we take the whole thing out,
we can see,
possibly, what's inside there.
Aha!
Now, that's what you would expect to see.
I don't know why somebody would have put that in there.
If they were trying to sort of quieten the volume down,
you would put, you know, you would jam something into the end of the
horn, literally. And yes,
that is where the expression, "put a sock in it," comes from.
Why somebody hid that behind this bit of stuff, goodness only knows.
Next, Tim turns his attention to the motor that powers the turntable.
Yes, it shouldn't be making that clicking, churning noise.
So that suggests there's something stuck inside there on one of the
gears. What it is, well, we shall find out when we get it apart.
Some of the treasures that arrive at The Repair Shop may not be large of
stature, but they hold decades of family history.
Judy Ford from East Lothian has brought in one such item.
Hello. Hi, there. Brought my chair. Oh, lovely. Thank you.
I think I know just the lady for this.
Good. Sonnaz? This is a job for the furniture dream team -
restorer Will Kirk and upholsterer Sonnaz Nooranvary.
So what have we got here?
Child's rocking chair. Child's rocking chair.
That's been with me all my life,
and my mum says she had it as a child as well, so
it could be about 120 years old.
Right. Wow! Can you remember this from, like, as a child?
Yes. I played with it, I rocked on it, I went over on it,
because it's not very stable! Gosh, yes! Right! LAUGHTER
And my daughters both used it.
Right. And my grandchildren both used it.
Oh, right! So, four generations. But I'd like to pass it onto the fifth,
when my grandchildren have their kids. Their kids.
Wow, that's incredible.
But at the moment it's just scruffy and tatty and...
Not quite usable. It's a little bit, er...
Coming to pieces! ..bit loose there. It's been sitting in an airing
cupboard now for, I would say, 30 years. Cos looking at these joints
here, I think that's where all of the glue looks like...
Yeah. Well, I would have said dry, but there's no glue there to be dry.
So, um, so that's why that's all popped out.
The key, really, is what colour fabric. Fabric, yeah.
Well, something... Jazzy yellow, or...?
Or some nice brown... Not necessarily... No, I don't want brown!
Something appropriate for children.
OK. I don't mind.
You don't mind, so we've got creative freedom.
Yes, you have. Yeah. Exciting. Yeah. Exciting indeed.
That's brilliant, thank you very much. Thanks for coming down.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye. Cheers, bye-bye.
Love it, love it. It's great, isn't it? Yeah.
I kind of want to have a little sit down.
No, no, don't do that yet. No? It's coming apart already, look.
These joints are really bad. Yeah.
I need to strip this off so that you can get on with the woodwork side.
Yeah, I think you should take it now before I try and sit on it.
Exactly. So without further ado...
Take it away. Cool.
See you later.
At his bench, gramophone expert Tim is taking apart the motor
of the tiny antique record player.
All these gears, all these teeth will need cleaning up.
It's just 90 years' worth of grot, basically.
Ah, now,
you can probably see here one old needle.
You always find these inside the boxes of gramophones, and that,
jammed against that, will have been probably what's making that strange,
scrunching, grinding noise as it was running round.
So I'm glad we found that.
One thing you can't do, and it's a mistake that people often make,
is they put a lot of fresh oil on without cleaning all the old stuff
off first, and that is basically like polishing a car
without washing it first.
Next into the workshop, Judy Evans has a piece of history that's been
part of her family business for four generations.
Right, what have we got?
We have my family's old cash register from 1913.
Oh, my word! Dom, can you give me a hand?
Judy's hoping that Steve and The Repair Shop team can get this old
heavyweight back on its feet again. Oh, blimey!
Cor, dear! You wouldn't run away with that till, would you?
You wouldn't! LAUGHTER
I'll leave you with that. Thanks, Dom, appreciate that.
Right, what have we got here, apart from, obviously, it's a till?
Yes, it's a cash register for my family business, which started in
1862. Oh, right. And this was purchased by my great-grandfather,
Mr George Williams. So the business is still in...
It's still in... in existence? Yes, I'm now running the shop,
as the great-great-granddaughter.
If you look inside the drawer here, so you look on the underside there,
you can just about make out George Williams here, and 1913,
and you read the guarantee, it's two years.
And sadly the guarantee has run out...in 1915!
LAUGHTER
When was the last time this was used?
Well, my father thinks it was around 1965-ish.
I mean, my dad used to joke, he didn't throw it out because he
didn't think decimalisation was going to take off. Oh, right! LAUGHTER
This is a great project, so thank you so much for bringing it in.
My pleasure, thank you. You're welcome.
The cash register was manufactured in America
by the National Cash Register Corporation.
Founded in 1884 in Ohio,
they were the makers of the world's first mechanical cash register.
By 1914 the company was producing over 100,000 a year,
and it's still going strong today.
But it's up to Steve to fix this 100-year-old model.
Steve, are we in the money yet? Eh? LAUGHTER
Must be payday. Look at that, down in there.
Whoa! See all the muck and grime?
Dirty in there, innit? So what are we going to do? Are we going to get it open? Yeah, let's get the back
off, shall we? Can you just hold that? See, it's really heavy.
Yeah, I've got it. There we go. Oh, my goodness!
That is heavy.
I've no idea where to start on this! LAUGHTER
I thought as much because normally you're,
"Right, I'll take that bit off, take that bit off..."
I think the first thing we need to do is get a Hoover.
All right, I'll get the Hoover. OK.
There we are.
Cool. Do you know how to use it?
Of course I do! I clean up every night, mate! LAUGHTER
There we go, there we go.
Oh, look at that.
You're enjoying that, aren't you? I am, as well! LAUGHTER
Look at that.
That looks so much better already, doesn't it?
No dust. Still doesn't work! LAUGHTER
On the opposite side of the workshop,
the child's rocking chair has been stripped of its upholstery
and passed over to wood expert, Will.
It looks to be in relatively good condition.
I think that the back here is just popping out there,
where the glue has dried, and the joints have come away,
but getting some glue in there, that should be quite a straightforward fix.
I'm going to give it a nice clean now and sort of see what I'm left
with after. Not everybody really knows the best way to clean
furniture, as well, so a lot of cleaners melt the top surface of the
polish to make it look cleaner, but
what you're doing is actually removing what you really
want to keep on there in order to protect the furniture.
Sometimes, just a really light clean
with a bit of white spirits, just to clear off any surface dirt,
is more than enough.
All that needs to be done now is, I need to get some glue into the
wobbly joints up here,
and clamp that down.
I'm really pleased with this. I love it.
Once the structure is secure, Will passes the chair back to Sonnaz.
Thank you. Wow, you've done a great job. Thank you very much.
Over to you. Thank you. And I look forward to seeing the fabric. Yes.
Now I've got this chair back from Will, I can now get some
upholstery on here - get upholstering it, rather.
First step, black and white webbing on the seat base,
and all I've got to do is web, I'd say, three webs across there.
A little bit tricky, because it obviously wants to rock.
That is ready to rock and roll.
OK, so I've got my fabric here.
Lovely, light-colour fabric.
I can see straight away that it does really bring out the lovely tones of
brown in the woodwork, and Will's lovely work that he's done to clean
this up has really made a difference.
So this is not my final fix, this is just a temporary fix.
Often your first anchoring tacks are too tight.
You can see here, this staple is a little bit too tight.
This is called a tack drag. You can tell that it's too tight because
there's a bit of an arc in the weft of the fabric.
The way that you remember what a weft and a weave is,
is weft goes "weft to wight", and a weave goes up the roll.
So as long as you remember "weft to wight", you won't get confused.
So I think I need to get a little bit more tension through the front,
but apart from that, it's looking quite good.
Horologist Steve has had to do some swotting up on the inner workings of
the antique till, as it's a far cry from his usual clocks and watches.
I've gone online to see what problems there are with the...these
National Cash Registers, and they've suggested that the problem is
usually in the totaliser, which is a bit of mechanism here on the front.
So I'm going to take, hopefully take this off. They say it's very, very
simple, so I'm very conscious that...
..there may be springs... METALLIC PING
Oh! Some spring went, then. HE CHUCKLES
Cor, that's heavy! Wow, this...
This is amazing. This is the totaliser.
This will give them a total of the
amount of money that's been put through the till in a day.
I'll just pop this over here.
Once broken, these complicated mechanisms are often beyond repair,
and the only way to get the till up and running
is to remove the totaliser completely.
They say that this will
unjam it.
Yes!
That's brilliant.
The one thing that isn't working is, the till's supposed to fly out.
As Steve delves deeper into the till's workings,
ceramics restorer Kirsten joins the investigation.
Hi, Steve. Hiya, you all right?
This is like a detective sort of thing, really.
Someone has tried,
or someone has successfully broken into it at some point.
Really? Cos this unit here,
you can see it's supposed to have a loop over it.
Yeah, absolutely. And that actually goes into the locking part of the
till. Right. Right, and it's been forced, so it's actually broken it,
so I need to repair that as well.
Oh, my goodness! But not only that, they've
actually tried putting a lever in... This is what I believe.
Right, OK, Detective Steve! Bear with me, they've put a lever in,
and they've actually broken the corner of that cast-iron front off.
How fascinating. Yep. Goodness me!
So, well, it is fascinating, because I want you to...
LAUGHTER ..erm, I'd like you to, I'm asking you to...
OK, are you begging me?
Yeah, I'm begging, right, begging to actually make a new piece there.
OK, let's have a look, then.
Yeah, I'm sure that's fine.
I've got a modelling material, which would be fine for metal,
and I could make up that corner, yeah.
Steve's asked me to have a look at this section from the cash register.
Although I don't normally work on metal items,
one of the fillers that I use, it's a two-part epoxy,
and it does actually cure really, really hard.
I come with gifts. Ooh, well done!
OK? Well, that's brilliant, absolutely brilliant!
Thank you. That's superb. All right?
Yeah, I can finish it off now. Good, I look forward to seeing it.
I'm just going to see whether it actually fits into the till
with the front on now, and locks all right.
And it does. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. TILL RINGS
Ch-ching! That's all right, that works well. Good.
Meanwhile, Tim is still working on the 95-year-old Peter Pan gramophone.
The acid test now - wind her up,
and will it actually work?
Oh, yes. She's turning, and the turntable,
or the spider, there we go.
Well, that looks pretty good. He's doing a nice, consistent speed.
As Tim reunites the record player with its case,
its owners, Richard and Lesley, are en route to The Repair Shop.
OK, keeping it real on the wheels of steel.
Good afternoon, Richard. Hello, Tim, nice to see you again.
Good afternoon, Lesley. Hi, Tim.
Well, how do you remember this, last time you saw it?
Defunct. The springs had gone, it was looking a bit tatty, a bit used.
Yeah, it wasn't looking very happy.
Well, I'll take the cover off...
Yeah... ..you let me know if you can spot any changes.
Oh, my word! Oh, look at that! Oh!
Do you want to open it up and assemble it? Yeah, sure.
OK...
Ah, that's different! That looks totally different. And the needle's there.
It still goes together in the same way. Oh, yes, it still goes together.
A lot of the problem is old gramophone needles that had fallen
down inside and were sticking into the gear.
Really? Is that right? Fancy that.
Now, we had a think about what you might like...
and... Oh, wow! ..there we go.
MUSIC: Sentimental Journey by Ella Fitzgerald
Wow! A little birdie told us you like this one.
Ah, right. It was one your dad liked, wasn't it? Yeah.
Oh, yes!
# Going to take a sentimental journey... #
APPLAUSE
Well done, Tim. Well done. Thank you. It's a pleasure, it's a pleasure.
If it makes you happy. then... You're a remarkable man.
A remarkable man. Well, it beats going out and getting a proper job, doesn't it? So how does it feel to
hear Ella Fitzgerald singing Sentimental Journey? I'm over the moon! I'm over the moon.
And Sentimental Journey is such an apt piece of music to play
anyway, considering, you know, what this is all about.
Mm. It's remarkable it's been able to be restored, and we can listen to
it again, and we can pass it on to our grandson...
As long as you're happy. Thank you very much. Thank you. A pleasure, a pleasure. Bye-bye. Safe journey.
Upholstery expert Sonnaz is putting the finishing touches to
the 100-year-old rocking chair, with a colourful modern twist.
The challenge with these particular studs is that the colour is actually
an enamelled colour finish, and I
have got a nylon-tipped
tack hammer, which will hopefully
mean that I'm not going to scratch
or dent the top surface of my stud.
Whacking it in. As I hit the stud, I've really got to hit it
square on the head of the actual dome.
If I don't hit it square, then two things can happen -
the pin could buckle, or the head could actually move off-centre.
Owner Judy has arrived to claim her family heirloom.
Hi! Hello! How are you?
I'm good, thank you. Nice to see you again.
And you, and you. So, are you ready?
Yeah.
Oh, isn't that lovely? SHE LAUGHS
Oh, lovely. They look like tiddlywinks, don't they?
Yeah, yeah, good. That's lovely, natural colours.
Thank you very, very much. Pleasure.
Smashing. I've made you a little extra something to go with it.
Oh, have you? I have, which is just down here.
I thought it was missing a cushion to go with it.
Oh! So we've made you a little round cushion to match it all...
That is lovely, for a little person. Yeah, yeah. That is lovely.
I just love this chair. Aawww! I really do. It's part of my life.
Mmm. It's fabulous. Thank you.
It's in a better condition than I ever remember it being in.
It's just wonderful to get it back in a usable state.
I'll find a little spot for it, so I can be proud of it yet again.
Mechanical whiz Steve has finished work on his first ever cash register
repair, and it's time for foreman Jay's inspection.
How we doing? Yeah, all done.
Yeah? Is it working, though? That's the main thing.
Yeah. Go on, have a go. Ten shillings and sixpence.
Ten shillings? Ten shillings, yeah. That one. No, that's just ten shillings!
You've missed out the sixpence. What, you've got to press them both together? Yeah.
Ten shillings and sixpence. Yeah. TILL RINGS
OK. Ch-ching. Ch-ching!
I've got one for you. Two fat ladies. 88!
Oh, that's nice. You've done a good job.
So even though it's the first time you've ever done a till...
Yeah. ..you've done it all right. Yeah. It's good, yeah.
Well done. You happy? Yeah, really happy. I love this.
This is going to look amazing in the shop, isn't it?
Yeah, it's going to look brilliant.
The till is transported back home to the shop in Cheshire,
where Judy's mum and dad, Derek and Megan, are reminiscing.
We've called it Williams's since 1862.
And we've run it for five generations now,
of which Judy is the latest.
£1.80, thank you very much. OK, thank you.
We always had the till there, and it was rather a nice thing to have.
I like the "ching". It went "Ping!" Like Open All Hours, it really was!
To celebrate its return, Judy has invited shop assistant Olive, and
Jean, who worked at the shop from the age of 14 until she retired.
Well, look what's back, everybody.
Shall we take a look? Let's have a look.
This old friend of the shop. I name this till Tilly! LAUGHTER
This is going to bring back a few memories, Jean, isn't it?
The cash register's really important to me, because it really
gives me that connection with the past and with my great-grandfather.
Oh, look at that!
That's fantastic! Oh, the corner's all fixed, look, that's fantastic!
So this was here when you came, Jean, was it?
Oh, yeah, that was definitely here, yeah, yeah.
TILL RINGS Oh, that's it! Oh, there we go!
Ch-ching! A lovely ring, isn't it? That's what I call music.
Yeah, it's nice to have this back in the shop now. It's lovely, yeah.
And it'll be here for a good while longer, we hope!
We hope, yes!
It just brings back memories, and I'm glad it's able to be used again.
It's wonderful that it's actually working.
Working better than it did when I was here! SHE CHUCKLES
TILL RINGS Wahey!
Join us next time, as more extraordinary treasures...
Oh, marvellous! ..are rescued and restored...
That is just how I remember it!
..in The Repair Shop.