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 a 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!
In The Repair Shop today,
a 20th-century masterpiece in need of a conservator's masterclass.
The only way I can tell there's a tear
is when I look at the back here and I see that.
And a 1940s bicycle that needs a bit of brute force.
Right. All right. Are we all on it? Right.
Oh, blimey. No, it's not moving.
First to arrive at The Repair Shop today is Sue Woods,
laden with a well-weathered reminder of days gone by.
Hello. Hello.
I'm Steve. I'm Sue. Nice to meet you. Hi.
She's putting all her trust in clock restorer Steve Fletcher.
What have we got in here?
We have got my grandparents' clock.
It was a wedding present in 1917.
Let's see, let's have a look. So it's 100 years old.
Oh. This is an interesting-looking clock.
It's not often that we get the three different dials on here.
The clock, the thermometer and the barometer.
Tell me a bit about the clock.
Well, this was my paternal grandparents' wedding gift
from the church in Glasgow where they went.
We lived with her because she rented the house
before my parents bought it
and I spent an awful lot of time with her,
went everywhere with her.
This was always in the middle of the mantelpiece
and sitting in Grandma's front room was one of those big memories.
Grandma became ill, she ended up with dementia.
So she went into hospital and eventually,
the living room got cleared
and after that, I don't know what happened.
I thought it just got packed up, put away somewhere.
About 40 years later, I found it in my dad's shed.
I don't know what happened,
but he'd obviously tried to resolve the problem and not got very far.
When you found it, what were your feelings?
I'm not sorry to say I cried, actually.
Because it was really upsetting.
This looks in pretty poor condition.
That fits nicely and that fits there.
And have you got the piece for...?
No, we're missing that one piece.
Oh! That's such a shame!
I know. I've got a lot, a lot of work to do, Sue, to the clock.
But I'll see what I can do on that.
Brilliant, that would be wonderful.
OK, thank you. Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Bye.
Bye now.
Once he gets the clock back to his bench,
the full extent of the job ahead begins to dawn on Steve.
We've got the barometer.
I need to replace the glass,
the hand and the outer bezel.
I've got the thermometer.
I hope the tube is all right.
The scale isn't.
The scale has completely deteriorated.
The clock is a massive job.
With so many components needing to be replaced,
Steve is drawing on some old reserves.
I have literally tens of thousands of old parts
that I've collected over my 45 years of doing clock repairs.
I've got this...
..old clock here.
And because the dial is missing as well,
I'm hoping that this dial will fit.
I quite often see a clock in the charity shop
and pick it up just to have as spares.
So...
It's its day now.
I'm going to take the movement out.
So, this seems really quite drastic,
but I think this is the only way of doing it.
There we go. There we are. We have a...
A dial that fits nicely in there now.
Next into The Repair Shop,
Barbara Reeve is bringing a treasured work of art
that's had an unfortunate accident.
She's hoping that painting conservator Lucia Scalisi
can bring it back to life.
Hello. Hello. Nice to meet you.
I'm Lucia. I'm Barbara.
Hello, Barbara. And this is the painting.
Oh.
Oh, wow! This is lovely!
Isn't it just? Yes!
It's Caputo!
Oh, and it's signed, it's dated...
Yes. Well, Caputo is an Italian, Neapolitan, I think,
or that area of Italy.
But I know that he lived and worked in Paris.
I presume this is the Seine running through here and that's...
The embankment. ..the other side, the embankment, yeah.
How did this come into your family or into your possession?
Well, it belonged to my great-great-aunt, originally.
She bought it when she was living in Paris.
When, do you know? Did she buy it from the artist, or...?
Well, I think it would be around this time
because shortly after that,
she came to London and lived in London.
So she could have bought it directly from the artist?
I think she probably did, yes.
And it came down through my grandmother and my father to me.
And it has very special memories for me
because my grandmother brought me up
for the first 13 years of my life.
So, it really is special to me.
It's beautiful!
Yes, it is, isn't it? And what has happened...?
Well, unfortunately...
It was my fault.
My father was moving.
So, he said I could have this painting.
So, we wrapped it up.
And put it on one side.
And we were wrapping some other things.
And I put my hand...
Oh, so that's...
..and I felt something and I thought, "Oh, my goodness me."
Did this happen recently because it kind of...?
Yes. It looks recent. Oh, yes, within about the last three months.
Oh, how heartbreaking.
Yes, but it would be wonderful to have it restored, absolutely.
I am thrilled. I'll be really thrilled to work on it.
Oh, thank you so much.
It's really beautiful. And I look forward to seeing it repaired.
Good, my pleasure, my pleasure.
Thank you very much. Thank you, bye-bye. Bye-bye!
Ulisse Caputo was an Italian artist
based in Paris at the turn of the 20th century.
Famous for his landscapes and elegant female portraits,
his rich palette and bold use of light and colour
brought him international recognition.
What I can see as a conservator
and what I'm looking for is how the artist painted it.
There are fingerprints in the paintwork.
And these must be the artist's fingerprints.
There's actually a couple on her face and certainly in her garments.
And I'm wondering if he modelled this figure with his fingers
before he sketched, you know, he sort of sketched it in...
with his fingers.
It's very unusual to have fingerprints like that.
But the priority is to get this tear repaired.
Steve is attempting to breathe new life
into a 100-year-old barometer clock
that's seriously under the weather.
He's making headway with the mechanisms,
but the damaged mahogany case is going to need
the expert eye of woodworker Will. Hey!
Is it a clock? It's a clock. It's a barometer and thermometer.
Three in one. Absolutely.
Great. So, I've got this bit.
OK. I've got this bit here.
Right. But I haven't got that bit.
Leave it with me. Excellent! Thank you! That's all right, Steve.
With so much to do on this job,
foreman Jay ensures things keep ticking over.
So, how are you getting on with Sue's clock barometer, then?
Yeah, all right.
I'm just going to check if the barometer is actually working.
There's...
There is a...a vacuum chamber in here.
That shiny, circular thing.
Yeah. When the pressure is high, you know, the air pressure's high...
Yeah. It forces it down
and basically, that pushes this lever down.
And it turns the hand one way or the other.
OK. Yep. So, how are you going to test it?
Basically, I'm going to increase the air pressure.
I'm going to pop it in here.
I'm going to seal it.
So, I'm going to push on there and see if the hand moves at all.
Moved a little bit, I mean, a little bit.
You see it? It's not turning enough.
It is turning a little bit.
Yeah. I think the best thing is if I...
If I strip down, clean it and then test it again.
OK, cool.
While some of the items that pass through the doors of The Repair Shop
have met with unfortunate accidents,
others arrive simply suffering from the ravages of time
and years and years of use.
The next arrival is a prime example.
A battered old childhood favourite
belonging to Caroline Sambrook-Hurst.
Hello. Hello!
I'm Steve. Hello, I'm Caroline.
Hi. Hi, I'm Eric.
Hello, Eric. And we've got your tricycle here.
I see you have.
Caroline's brought in her three-wheeler
for the attention of Steve
and vintage bike expert Erik Van Bommel.
A bit of a classic, I think.
What can you tell us about it?
Well, Christmas morning, 1954
is the first time I remember it.
And there was this Christmas present for me.
Looking a little better than this does at the moment.
I can imagine, yeah.
It has been well used, but not all by me.
We'd go down the village with my brother.
He'd put things in the boot and it had my toys in here.
And what you could do,
another child could sit on it and hold on to there.
Oh. Is that why this is slightly dented here?
Probably. THEY LAUGH
Looking at it, I'm pretty sure this is a Triang
which is a famous British brand.
They're very rare, and...
People have mentioned that they had them but they've never kept them.
So this is quite special.
It is special. Yeah.
What are your plans with it?
Well, what I'd really like to be able to do
is have Thomas, my grandson, be able to have the bike to ride
and that would be great fun.
I'll definitely try, obviously.
It will be a pleasure to work on it.
Thank you. Leave it with us and we'll see what we can do.
Thank you, goodbye. Bye-bye now.
So, Eric, what are the main areas that you've got to repair on this?
All right. We'll clean up the frame, we'll repaint the frame.
Following that, we'll rebuild the wheels with nice, clean spokes.
And lastly, probably the most difficult job,
is trying to repair this beautiful little boot
on the back here.
OK, let's get it over to your bench.
All right. You can manage it.
Oh, easy, easy!
See you later! See you, thanks!
Eric has 35 years' experience of fixing up broken-down bikes
in his native New Zealand,
the United States and now here in the UK.
His first job is to break the trike down into its component parts.
With some gentle persuasion.
Here we go.
Beautiful, look at that.
Lovely.
One last wiggle.
There, left and right back.
And here we go. Lovely.
Meanwhile, Lucia is beginning her repair
of the painting by the early 20th-century artist Ulisse Caputo,
which has a tear running through its Parisian scene.
I've got my adhesive in here.
It's isinglass, which is a fish glue,
and this is acid-free tissue.
And I'm just going to position it along...
the edge of the tear.
And this will hold all those little fractured flakes of paint
because I want, really,
to put as little of my work on to this painting as I can.
Once the glue is dry,
Lucia uses a heated spatula to remove moisture
from the back of the painting
and flatten any loose threads.
Then, she applies a heat-sealed adhesive to stop it fraying.
I use silicone release paper on top of it
so it doesn't stick to anything.
And the painting is sat on release paper, as well.
And then, the heat will activate the adhesive
and attach the whole thing to the canvas.
It's nice and flat and it's held in place.
So, I'm going to start the cleaning.
I'm going to do a surface clean first.
And then start to remove the varnish.
It is basically taking off...
..years of dirt.
In this case, probably best part of 100 years of dirt
and discoloured varnish.
So, then we're down to the natural colour,
but it's always a little bit dried-out.
So, it needs a varnish back on the surface.
Once the varnish is dry, Lucia can start to disguise her repair.
I'm using an acrylic filler.
It's ready-made.
I like it because it's very quick and easy to use
and I can rub it down easily afterwards.
In crude terms, it is a bit like doing a filling
as you would in your DIY situations at home.
A broken-down barometer clock has brought Steve and Will together
on a very complicated rescue mission.
Steve is overhauling the barometer, thermometer and clock functions
while Will has been attending to the marred mahogany casing.
Cor, well done, lad, look at it.
Yeah?
That... Oh... Nice and smart?
That is lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely.
Next on Steve's long to-do list
is to restart the clock mechanism, which hasn't ticked for decades.
This is the moment of truth.
CLOCK TICKS There we are. Ticking straightaway.
Beautiful.
I've done this all my life
and come to this moment so many times.
And it still gives me such satisfaction when I put the key in,
turn it, and it starts ticking straightaway like that.
At the back of the workshop,
bike expert Eric has taken apart a broken-down child's trike.
He's now trying to reinvent its tired old wheels.
I've taken the tyres and tubes off, a couple of spokes out,
and I'll get the rungs repainted.
But I think we'll have a good bike by the end of it all.
Eric has enlisted the help of metal expert Dominic Chinea.
But the bike's battered old boot may be beyond even his skills.
It's in a really bad way.
Um, the more I look at it, the more damaged bits I can see.
There's a lot, a lot of work to do on this.
Daunted but not defeated,
Dom sets to work cutting away any perished metal.
This has come out in one piece which is great
cos it's allowed me to template from nice fresh steel.
So now I can just put this new piece back in,
so that's pretty much... Now, it's ready to weld.
Back in the workshop, Lucia has fixed the tear in the painting.
Now she must match the colours of the original artist's palette
to blend in her repair.
I've done a little bit of reconstruction in the tree
because a branch,
a section through the trunk was missing,
and some of the branches were missing.
So I've just sort of worked them up.
It looks quite pale, and I can see, just doing this,
it's a little bit too blue. But it's, it's getting there.
After many long hours of labour,
the once-dilapidated barometer clock is finally ready for reassembly.
With parts cannibalised from donor clocks,
Steve begins by rehousing the gauges,
starting with the barometer.
So, Steve, are we at a crucial stage here?
We are. You know, the barometer you helped me with, test... testing.
Yeah, in the back. That is in there.
Now I've found a nice old hand
that came off an old barometer.
Cool. So I'm just going to find out what the pressure is.
It's 30.5.
All right, so you've just set it to that.
I have.
It's pointing to fair at the moment,
and, um, it's good weather today, so...
All right. Yeah. You can't look at this
and put your washing out and think, "It's going to be fine."
Is it any good then? Yeah, no, it's, it's handy.
It gives you an idea. It's handy. Yeah, it gives you an idea.
Believe me. For me, what I'd do,
is I'd just look out of the window before I hang out my smalls.
Yeah.
THEY LAUGH
The barometer clock arrived in a sorry state,
frozen in time for over 40 years.
Its owner Sue has returned
in the hope that waiting for her
is a beloved old friend, come rain or shine.
Hello, Sue, how are you? Steve, how are you doing?
Hi. Oh, what have you got for me?
Right, I'll just get something for you.
Right.
Can you hear anything?
Oh, my God!
It ticks. Right.
I'm going to uncover it,
let you have a look at it in its full splendour.
Ah.
Oh, my God!
That's brilliant.
I don't believe that.
That is absolutely fantastic - you are a genius.
Have they managed to do the...?
Yes, Will's done a lovely job with the case.
Oh, God, isn't it?
It's a long while since I've seen it like this.
If you didn't know better,
you'd think you'd nipped out and got another one, it's so good.
You can see the mechanism.
Oh, God. It's ticking away beautifully there.
It is unbelievable.
You've had it - you will get hugged!
Bless you. Thank you so much.
It's absolutely brilliant. Oh!
I'll get it all wrapped up safely for you,
and you can take it home and get it on to your mantelpiece.
I will do that.
Can't believe that Steve's done such a fantastic job on the clock.
I was absolutely shocked rigid.
It's brilliant. My grandmother would be absolutely ecstatic.
She'd be really, really pleased
that it's been repaired to such a brilliant standard.
Outside in the metalwork area, Dom is making headway
with the vintage tricycle's boot.
There's a good few dents in this front panel
and this top piece was all dented.
I've been going around with various different hammers,
depending on what I'm doing to get into different areas,
there's different heads.
And then with different dollies, which are these,
which we'd use on the other side of the metal as the hammer.
Different shapes, depending on the curve of what you're,
what you're trying to beat. So I'm just working round now
trying to get this nice and smooth again.
But on the whole, it's looking an awful lot better.
I'm really happy, I just need to tackle this lid now,
which looks like it's going to fit quite well.
Once Dom's finished,
the boot and the rest of the components
are sandblasted and painted,
ready for Eric to completely rebuild the tricycle.
Right! Put the top cap on.
Screw it all down.
So I just adjust this up, see if everything is nice and snug.
Oh!
Oh, dear. As you can see here,
it's got a big gap in the fork
and the bearings are exposed, not a good sign.
Before he can continue the rebuild,
Eric's going to need some help
straightening out the bent steering post.
Hi, Steve. I've got a bit of a problem,
I wonder if you could help me with it?
OK. As you can see, that is not straight.
Wow. That is really bent.
That is a common fault with old bicycles,
they've ridden into a wall at some stage, probably several stages.
OK.
Let's put it in that vice over there.
Yeah, OK.
A bit of brute force may be the answer,
or it could spell disaster.
Gently, gently, gently.
Right. So that's it and you're OK.
You tell me when. OK.
I think it's going to need both of us.
Right. OK? Mm.
Ready? Yeah.
Crikey. Oh, my...
What on earth are you doing?
We're bending, bending it straight.
Bending it straight, nice, OK!
Can I help? Can I hold the bench or something?
Or push from the other side.
Push, yeah? Yeah.
OK, are we all on it? Right.
Oh. That moved.
THEY LAUGH
I think we've fixed it, boys.
Yeah. And not, not a scratch on the paint.
No scratch, no, and no paint, yeah.
Thank goodness. The beers are on me.
Hey, great. Remember that.
Cold one!
Lucia has been painstakingly restoring
the cherished Caputo painting.
The canvas had a rip running through it,
and was in need of some delicate repair work.
Hi. Looks like you've almost finished Barbara's painting.
I have nearly finished. A little bit more varnishing, I've got to do.
I don't know if you remember the tear that was in it?
Yeah. But I did the tear repair. So that's quite neat.
So what's left to do? I need to put another spray-coat of varnish on it,
and just sort of bring that tear up a little bit,
because it's still a little bit matte in parts.
The only way I can tell there's a tear
is when I look at the back here and I see that.
But this is clean.
It looks beautiful. Good.
Barbara's returning to The Repair Shop
to see if her great-great-aunt Annie's painting
has been rescued.
How nice to see you again.
Nice to see you, welcome back.
Lovely to see you.
This is Jay. You all right?
Yes, pleased to meet you.
Likewise. So, I'm so excited.
Well... I've got my fingers crossed.
Yes. Are you ready? Yes.
Wow! Look at that!
You cannot see a thing.
That is the idea! That is amazing, isn't it?
What a wonderful job you've done.
I'm glad you like it.
I think that because the damage has been repaired,
your eye is not going to immediately go to that area any more.
It was very dominating, wasn't it?
It was, absolutely. And you've cleaned it for me.
Yeah, it cleaned really quite well,
so you're really seeing its true colours now, which will last.
They're beautiful, aren't they? I can't believe it.
And this must be how she saw it.
Well... You know. That's really...
It really is emotional, that is.
It's absolutely amazing, and I can't thank you enough.
I'm glad you like it. It is beautiful. My pleasure.
My father will be delighted as well to see it like this.
It's just so many memories of when I was younger.
Yes. And it just connects me straight back,
straight back, absolutely.
Thank you for bringing it in. Thank you ever so much.
And thank you so much for what you have done.
Oh, my pleasure, Barbara.
I love it.
It's beyond all my dreams, that is.
I'm very relieved because I know my father will forgive me now,
especially as it looks so wonderful now, he'll be delighted.
He might even thank me for doing it, you never know.
SHE LAUGHS
Bike expert Eric is putting the finishing touches
to the vintage tricycle.
So here we have the boot,
reconditioned, repainted, panel-beated.
Now it looks beautiful, like new now.
Hopefully, it goes in together.
This is starting to look really cool.
Hi, Steve. Well, that's looking fantastic.
It is, it's a massive labour of love,
but it's looking very, very tidy.
That's incredible, isn't it?
And these forks, the straightening of it worked all right?
The straightening worked fine, by the look of it.
There, it's vibration free, it's nice and tight, nice and safe.
The brakes work, squeeze a lever.
There we are.
Excellent. I think you've done an absolutely fantastic job, well done.
Thank you, yes, thank you very much.
Really well done.
After 64 years,
the wheels were in danger of coming off this tired old trike.
But a bespoke restoration means it's ready for another generation.
In Stratford-upon-Avon,
its owner Caroline is awaiting a first look at the three-wheeler
with her grandchildren, Thomas and Keisha.
Look what I've found!
What do you think of this?
Yay! What do you think's inside here?
I think we'd better get the covers off, don't you?
Yeah. Go on, then.
Oh!
Look at this!
Oh, my goodness me!
Ooh, look at that, look at that.
Fantastic. Thomas, can you remember what it was like before?
All dirty.
SHE LAUGHS
That is absolutely lovely.
I love it! Yes.
Are you going to try it?
See what you think.
Put your feet on the pedals.
Right, off you pedal, come on.
There you go.
HE SHOUTS
HE LAUGHS
It was amazing.
I would never have thought
that I would have seen my grandchildren
playing with one of my toys.
That is just such an astounding feeling.
It makes you feel really sort of warm and fuzzy inside.
Join us next time in The Repair Shop,
as the team takes on more precious items in need of some TLC...
Jeepers, look at that!
..and brings them back to life.