Welcome to the Repair Shop,
where cherished family heirlooms are brought back to life.
This is the workshop of dreams.
Home to a 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...
Right tool for the right job.
..they will resurrect...
..revive... On board, man! ..and rejuvenate...
..treasured possessions
and irreplaceable pieces of family history...
Wow! She's fantastic!
..bringing both the objects...
Oh! This is what I remember.
..and the memories that they hold...
Wow!
..back to life.
Oh, my God!
In the Repair Shop today,
the future of a 100-year-old figurine
is in Kirsten's hands.
Oh, golly!
So it's actually come away.
While a Victorian keepsake challenges silversmith Brenton.
OK, so that's now not coming off. At the moment,
there's no way that's coming out without breaking it.
But first, a family heirloom in need of attention.
Hello. How we doing? Hello.
You all right? Fine, thank you. Oh, there's three of you! Yep.
That's cool.
Sisters Anne, Jill and Mary
are here with something that holds precious memories.
So you brought along a clock.
You're going to need my main man Steve.
If you don't mind helping us out. It's a little one, though, isn't it?
Hello. What have we got here, then? Hello, Steve.
Horologist Steve Fletcher is the go-to guy for anything that ticks.
This is a clock our grandfather made.
He was a cabinet-maker
for the West Yorkshire police. Oh, right, OK.
And when he passed, we inherited it.
And I've had it - not working - in my house for
at least 40 years. All right.
You know what, I thought, because there's three of you,
you've split it up.
And it's a bit... It's not right.
When was the last time you can remember this working?
I can't remember it working, really.
I've asked my mum,
and she can't remember it working, so well over 50 years.
Oh, gosh! Right, OK. Blimey. Yeah.
And your dad made this, then?
SISTERS: Our grandfather.
You know, with him actually making it, it sort of brings back memories.
I think we've got very fond memories of our paternal grandfather,
who was a wonderful man, you know, spent a lot of time with us.
He was such a kind, gentle man.
You know, we haven't got a lot... No, we haven't got much
to remind us of him. So it would be wonderful.
It really would.
This is...this is one of the big things that we've got left of him.
So this clock will remind you of your grandfather.
SISTERS: Oh, absolutely. Yes, it will, yeah.
Fantastic.
Gosh, that is...
Dusty.
I can see that hasn't been working for years.
This is a big job. Is it? SISTERS: Aw!
How on earth did it get so broken like this?
It did take a bit of a tumble down the stairs at one point.
Oh, did it?! Yeah.
It's fallen down the stairs - that would explain it, then.
THEY LAUGH
And did you knock it over?
My son did when he was little,
doing Hickory Dickory Dock,
and we caught him swinging it, so...he dropped it... Really? Yeah.
..when we shouted. It did come apart from the main body of it.
Yeah. Is your son still feeling guilty about it? Yeah,
we remind him constantly.
Yeah, he's 30 now.
I can see that it's been made really well.
Yeah? And... What sort of clock do you call it?
A grandmother clock.
So it's probably called a granddaughter clock.
Granddaughter clock? Yeah, cos it's that much shorter.
They're all quite loose terms.
They're all called long-case clocks, really.
But this one would be a granddaughter clock cos it's so short.
Oh, that's lovely to say I've ended up with it, really, isn't it?
Cos I'm his granddaughter.
Yeah, that's a bit of a project. All right.
So leave it with us, ladies, and we'll get back to you.
SISTERS: Thank you.
That is quite a lot, though, isn't it?
That... That's a lot, a lot, a lot of work.
I'm just a bit upset that it's got in such bad condition, really,
cos that's one of the memories we've got of our grandfather.
We'd just like to retain it and get it back to how it was.
Anything that we can keep after 50, 60 years that he made,
it'll be treasured in the family forever.
I tell you what, every time I glance at this, there's more work.
There's more! When I hear you say that,
I know there's a lot of bits missing.
But you didn't make it too bad for them.
It really is a big job.
There's bits missing, broken,
the glass is missing, the bezel's bent.
And this is before I've even taken the mechanism apart, so
goodness knows what I'll find, but all very interesting, really.
All right. Well, we've got a lot of work, can't hang about here.
Yeah, well, it's a good job. Let's get it on to your bench, then. OK.
This clock hasn't seen the light of day for decades.
The mechanism is absolutely filthy.
When it fell down the stairs, it absolutely...
..went with quite a bash because it has broken parts.
I can see here, this clock needed an overhaul before it fell
down the stairs.
Because you can tell in the holes, they're absolutely black.
So I've got to give it a full overhaul, basically,
and do all the repair work,
and I don't know what I'm going to find yet.
Cor, that's tight.
I'll have to try another screwdriver.
Love using this screwdriver.
It feels great.
It belonged to my grandfather.
And it just works. It's a ratchet screwdriver.
And it's worked for 80, 100 years.
It's just lovely.
And my grandfather used it, so I love that.
So these pallets are the part of the clock that actually ticks.
You've got these pallets here,
which, on this clock, they're made
of semiprecious stones like rubies.
So in turn, these pallets go in between the teeth
of the escape wheel,
which does the tick-tock, tick-tock,
and they're slightly, slightly...
..chipped on one edge, but I think probably the working part
of the escape wheel should be OK on it.
So far, I've found parts broken that I need to repair
and wear as well. So I've got to strip the whole movement down
to see just how bad the clock is.
The next customer to arrive at the Repair Shop
is Martin Wedgwood, from Staffordshire.
Hi, you must be Martin.
Hello. Yes. I'm Kirsten.
He's got a prized item for ceramics conservator Kirsten Ramsay.
Right, what have you got?
We have a First World War soldier...
..that was made by Royal Doulton...
Ah! Oh!
..in 1919 to commemorate the end...
..of the First World War.
Goodness me! I've...I've actually never seen one of these.
I've never seen another one.
Oh, really? OK. That's Blighty.
As you can see, it's across the bottom. Oh, yes, I see.
Yeah, absolutely.
And they're not very common. Unusual, really unusual.
What can you tell me about this piece, then?
Well, my grandfather was Harry Bentley.
He was a master thrower at Doulton's, Royal Doulton.
Oh, really? We understand he was the last master thrower that threw
on the production line at Doulton. Oh, really?
Before they went over to fully moulded cups
and, you know, ware.
He had hook thumbs. Oh, did he? Because, you know, he started
when he was 15. Right. And worked right the way through
till he retired, and continuous pressure on the clay,
and his thumbs hooked round. His sort of thumbs became
tools, almost. Yeah, right, to form the clay. Goodness me.
He had odd things in the house -
some cups and saucers that he'd made himself
and things like that. Right. And this.
And as a young lad,
it was...that was fascinating to look at it and touch it
and see it there, in the window. Yeah.
So you actually touched it, did you? Oh, yeah.
Well, I know...
I wasn't supposed to, really, not allowed to do,
but we'd sneak in there, myself and my brother,
and go through the cupboards and things, you know, as you did.
My mother,
when my grandfather died, she knew I appreciated it. Yes.
And so when... She passed it on to me rather than kept it herself.
It's quite unusual, isn't it? It is, it is.
It's very, very shiny. Very glossy. Yeah.
I see underneath it says Titanian.
Titanian, as opposed to the metal titanium.
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
It's Titanian ware. Right. Which is...quite rare.
I don't think I've worked on this type of glaze before, actually.
It is unusual, it is.
So I'm just... Obviously, there must be something...
If you look at it his head. Ah, yeah.
I am seeing it in the light.
His head's been off, yeah.
Apparently, my grandmother, some time in the '60s,
when she was dusting, managed to knock it over and the head came
off, and she stuck it on, as you can see, not particularly well.
Oh. And there's a little chip on the cap... Yes.
..where it probably hit the hearth or something
on the way down.
It looks like perhaps it's a sort of animal glue or something.
I mean, she used... One of the things she used was egg white.
Oh, really? Historically, I remember,
you know, that being used to stick things on.
Oh, OK! So it could be that, but I'm only guessing.
I mean, I've seen things stuck together with chewing gum
and all sorts,
but never egg white.
So, hopefully, it'll come off quite easily.
It'll be interesting to mimic this glaze.
Might be slightly tricky. A challenge. I'll do my best. Yes!
Well, if you'd like to leave it with me... I would indeed, yes.
..and I'll be in touch. Super. Thank you very much.
Thank you. See you again soon. OK.
The soldier brings back happy memories of my grandma
and my grandad.
We were very close to them, myself and my brother.
I've never actually remembered seeing him intact,
you know, cos my grandma broke him in the '60s when I was a wee lad.
And, yeah, it'll be nice to see him
fully repaired and resplendent in his...in his uniform.
This is a really interesting piece.
In 25 years, I've not worked on a piece of Titanian ware.
And I've certainly not knowingly worked on anything that was stuck
together with egg white.
Probably the most challenging thing is going to be
mimicking this glaze.
It's incredibly shiny and glossy,
so that might prove to be quite tricky. We'll find out.
Clockmaker Steve is in full swing.
He's been cleaning all the individual parts
of the granddaughter clock, and he's now ready to begin repairs.
Right, I've got the bezel all ready to solder now.
What I've done is wired it up.
I've put these five bricks around to hold it steady.
And hopefully, it's going to stay still and I'll be able to...
..solder it OK.
So they used silver solder, which melts at a far lower
temperature and runs into the brass joint.
The solder's run beautifully.
Before he moves on to fixing the mechanism,
Steve needs to get renovations on the wooden case up and running.
It's the perfect job for furniture restorer Will Kirk.
Will, I need your help.
More work for me? Yep.
Absolutely. I was about to sharpen my chisel, Steve.
Well, you'll have to do this instead. Right, what is it?
This is a granddaughter clock.
This goes on top like that. Ah, I see.
And then the mechanism goes in there, obviously.
You have the mechanism.
I do have the mechanism. OK. Quite an easy job for you.
It looks easy. I don't want to say easy yet
because I know with you, you always give me these "easy" jobs
and they end up turning into an absolute nightmare. Yeah.
Well, it looks like it's broken into just the two pieces.
Yeah. Done it. Finished. Done! Oh, thank you.
THEY LAUGH
Probably could do with a good polish as well.
Half an hour? Half an hour... Maybe even less.
Don't hold me to it, but I will let you know
when it's ready. And counting. And counting.
There's some serious damage to the top of this clock.
Steve's asked me to glue it back on.
The only problem is I'm not sure if
it's through heat or...
..a change in temperature,
but the top of this seems slightly twisted.
I turned this around and I realised that this flat
panel on the side is quite loose.
So maybe if I glue that back on
and clamp it back in,
then the top should sit a lot better.
One little trick with using a clamp
is I usually get some wood between the surface
that you're clamping
and the bottom of the clamp because what you don't want to do
is clamp that on there,
tighten it up, cos then you're left with a ring mark.
That prevents any further damage.
Next, Will seals the join with wood filler.
Then takes the clock case outside where the natural light helps him
to perfectly match colours and paint over the fill,
seamlessly concealing the repair.
The thing with wood, it's not always just a flat colour,
like a flat brown or anything.
It actually has sort of layers and different depths
to it, so it's quite tricky to build up that colour
to make it look like wood
rather than just painted-on brown.
Yeah, that's looking really good.
Steve, meanwhile, is focusing on all the worn components
in the clock mechanism.
After decades of use, the part that regulates the speed of the strike
has become very loose.
The bearing that it goes in -
you can see it's just flopping around in there.
That's because the hole has really worn far too big.
So basically I've got to pop a tiny little bush in.
A bush is a minute ring of metal that closes up any holes
that have worn too large.
So that bush is in there.
Then I need to open up the hole.
There's a very, very small hole - probably about 0.15 of a millimetre.
So I'm using these little needle-like things.
It's a five-sided tapered cutting tool
that we use for opening up holes.
This one is probably as fine as a hair or an acupuncture needle.
You just keep twisting it round
until you get to a point where...
it goes in. That's better.
TICKING
I've done all the bushing to the clock now.
So I now just need to reassemble the whole clock.
Steve, for you.
So the top is connected to the bottom.
And there were a few cracks that I had to fill and...
Oh, well done. ..blend in. That's brilliant. Perfect.
Happy? Get it finished now. Get it finished. Well done.
Get it done. It's about time!
The next customer to the Repair Shop is Jackie Ellis.
She has a much-loved possession that needs the attention
of silversmith Brenton West.
Hello. Hello. How are you doing? Very good, thank you.
Hi. Brenton. Hello. Hi, Jackie. Pleased to meet you.
So what have you got in there for us?
I've got my granny's magnifying glass.
Here we are.
And be careful because it's lethal.
It's very sharp, is it? OK.
So tell me a bit about this, then.
Well, it belonged to my granny and my childhood memory of it
is that she used to read the Sporting Life through it.
So she was into horses, then?
She had three bets a day.
One was based on breeding, one was based on form
and the other was what she called her whimsy bet.
So if something was running called Ginger Nut, she would back it.
I can't think why!
So then she would write the three bets
on the back of a fag packet... Yeah.
..they would be given to me and I would run to the local
tobacconists and then I think he probably phoned the bets through,
but we didn't have a phone. Right. OK.
I mean, you know, we're back in ancient history now. Yeah!
One day I came back and it had been pouring with rain
and I was absolutely soaked and I said,
"Granny, why don't you just go to the bookies in the high street?"
She looked at me as if I was mad.
She said, "Darling, I wouldn't be seen dead in a betting shop!"
So send you, then! Yeah, yeah!
But she engendered in me a great love of racing,
which is still a big part of my life.
Did she ever win, though? Yes, she did.
She very rarely ended a week out of pocket.
She was good. She was good.
So this is a lucky magnifying glass, then?
I think so. And it looks like it's been well loved.
Yeah, I don't know its history at all.
I've often wondered if it was French
because she used to go to the casinos on the south of France.
She liked gambling, then? Oh, yeah, she did!
She liked gin, too. OK!
But she died in 1986, so I inherited it then.
And was it broken when you got it?
I pretty much remember it being broken all the time,
because if I picked it up she would say, "Be careful!"
So she would use it like this? It was broken? Oh, yeah.
Yeah? Oh, she was reckless!
Because that's really dangerous. It is. Yeah.
What they used to do when they made silver objects
is to make it out of very, very thin silver
and then fill it with pitch... Oh!
..which gave it a weight and a strength.
And what happens is if it gets knocked and the pitch breaks inside,
this silver, as you can see, is very, very thin... Thin, yeah.
..and it then loses its strength.
So cutlery handles are made the same way.
Are you talking pitch as in tar?
As in tar, yes. Gosh.
Or as in sap from a tree, it depends what sort of pitch it is.
But it's either tar from a road, without the stones!
Without the stones!
Or pitch that comes out of a pine tree. Oh, pitch pine. Yeah.
I do think that the handle had actually broken
but it just appears to have come apart.
When I look closely at it, the component parts are all there,
they're just in the wrong place.
Has it ever been right off, or not? No, not that I know of.
We can have a look at that and see if we can make that
a bit better for you. That'd be fantastic.
Thank you, Jackie. Thank you very much indeed.
Thanks. Nice to meet you and we'll see you later.
Thank you. See you later. You take care.
I grew up with it there the whole time
because I spent a great deal of time with Granny
because my dad was ill for quite a bit of my childhood
and Mum was either hospital visiting or working,
so I would be parked with Granny,
and the magnifying glass was there every day
because every day she placed her bets.
Whenever I look at it, it takes me back to childhood.
And to be able to actually handle it and use it again would be wonderful.
How are you going to tackle that one? Right...
Remember, I do have plasters.
That's good, we'll need the plasters.
You shouldn't need the plasters. If I'm careful, I'll be all right.
I've got to get the two parts of the handle off the glass... Right.
..I've got to clean up all these sharp edges,
I've then got to get the pitch out of it... Pitch, right, yeah.
..which is the other stuff that's keeping this stiff.
I've then got to establish what the metal is.
I believe it to be silver, although if it's brass
with silver plating on it,
you can't heat that up without re-plating it,
because it'll burn all the plating off. Right.
So I need to establish that it's solid silver as well.
The best way to find out if an object is silver
is to search for a hallmark -
tiny imprints of numbers, letters and images in the metal
that, to the trained eye, tells a story.
I have seen a small mark on here
so I'm just going to have a quick look
and see if I can establish whether it's silver or not.
And I can see a lion, which is a good sign,
and I can see an anchor.
So the anchor signifies it's from Birmingham
and the lion says it's sterling silver.
There's a date letter, which I would have to look up,
and there's a maker's name, which again, I can look up.
The point of the hallmark is that it's a tested government quality.
So this is 925 parts per thousand silver guaranteed.
If it wasn't to that standard, they wouldn't hallmark it.
I've looked on the internet and I've established that this is made by
Adie & Lovekin of Frederick Street in Birmingham.
The date letter on this item is a "T", which is 1894.
So we know Birmingham, Adie & Lovekin, sterling silver,
1894.
Now that he's ascertained the age of the magnifying glass
and what it's made of, Brenton can forge ahead with the restoration.
So to repair this little area around here,
I've got to get this handle off here.
So I'm just going to pull and see what happens.
It's quite loose, so I feel it'll come off quite easily.
So that is really, really on there.
OK, so that's now not coming off.
Just how to prise this delicate object apart
is going to require some careful investigation.
Kirsten is restoring a limited edition figurine,
created to commemorate the end of the First World War.
She needs to reverse the previous 60-year-old repair,
allegedly fixed with egg white.
Blighty is going to have to lose his hand.
I'm just going to start off with a little bit of water
and see if that's going to soften whatever it is.
What we tend to do is actually work our way up through
the various chemicals to see which one will soften the adhesive,
and you always start with water, pretty much.
Nope, that doesn't seem to be softening it at all.
I'm actually going try acetone and see if that will soften it.
I'm going to just have a little go now
and see if that's softened it at all.
Unfortunately, the acetone doesn't really seem to be
having much effect on this.
Whatever it is, it's not budging so I'm going to have to move
on to some paint stripper
and hopefully that will start to dissolve the adhesive.
So once I've applied the stripper,
I cover the whole piece in some tinfoil
and this actually just sort of contains some of the fumes
and it also keeps the active ingredient working on the area
that I want it to work on.
Also, if the head were just to tumble off,
if there was some sort of marvellous, you know,
instant, miraculous action,
it would kind of hold it safely as well.
So I'm just going to pop it there
and leave it for probably about an hour or so.
Steve, meanwhile, has almost finished reconditioning
the granddaughter clock
built by a beloved grandad over 50 years ago.
This has been quite a nice job to do, actually.
It was in a heck of a state.
You wouldn't recognise it now from how it looked before.
We're ready to pop it into the case now.
The mechanism, bezel, dial and case may be reunited again,
but will the clock start running?
Just put the pendulum in and...
A nice even tick.
That's good.
Sisters Anne, Jill and Mary were in desperate need of help
with their grandfather's clock,
which had been broken into three parts and hadn't ticked for decades.
We can't ever remember it as working order,
it's just been there in our grandfather's home,
so we're very excited.
To think that it could be chiming or it could have a pendulum,
it's just...
I can't quite believe what it's going to be like at all.
Hello. Hi, Steve. Nice to see you again.
How are you? Come and have a look. ALL: Oh!
Exciting! So have you been looking forward to this moment?
Oh, we have, yes. Yes, absolutely.
Do you remember how it looked before you brought it along?
In pieces.
So it is quite embarrassing to bring it in to you
because it was just... The head fell off.
The head came off, didn't it?
There were bits missing and it was all black and...
It was embarrassing to think that we thought anybody could make...
could actually do anything with it.
Do you know what? It was absolutely black.
I mean, really the colour black. It was so dirty.
We thought you were going to stay that you wouldn't be able
to mend it. I won't hold you in suspense any longer.
THEY GASP
Oh, wow! Oh, it's beautiful.
CLOCK CHIMES
Did you hear it striking? Yeah! Absolutely. We did.
What a marvellous job. Look, it's moving. Yeah.
Oh, that's beautiful. That is unbelievable.
It's like a different clock, isn't it?
Did you have to completely start from scratch?
I've stripped it completely down to every little tiny piece.
I've repaired the movement, there was lot, a lot of wear,
and replaced some of the parts.
One of the ruby jewels was missing so I popped a new one of those in.
I didn't notice those little jewels in the top there, did you? No.
It's amazing.
So you'll see Will has done the most amazing job of the case as well.
You must've spent hours doing this. I did.
I mean, it's absolutely brilliant.
It's an absolute family heirloom.
It's definitely going to be something that's passed on
to future generations now.
And it's got an even bigger story to it now. No, it has, yeah.
Because now it's been fixed and sort of brought back
from the dead almost. Absolutely. It has.
Where is it going to go in your house?
Well, before it was in the dining room in the corner,
but I think I'll have it in the lounge
in a more prominent place now.
Can you make a promise to me that you don't put it on the stairs?
No! No, it's not...
No, it's not going anywhere near any stairs! No.
And her son's not going anywhere near it either. No, he's not.
It's been a pleasure to do. Thank you very much.
It brings back real memories of Grandad
because he was such a lovely man, and he was a very clever man.
We have pieces of furniture in the house that have been made by him,
but the clock was something special.
It is, it's amazing. It'll take pride of place in the house
and it's the talking point of the family.
Everybody will be coming round to have a good look at it.
Ceramics conservator Kirsten is hoping the paint stripper
has worked its magic on Blighty.
Let's have a look. Oh, golly.
So it's actually come away, which is fantastic.
I don't think this can possibly be egg white.
It looks too thick and too stringy for that.
But anyway, I can now clean this off and start the next stage.
How's the little soldier doing?
Not you, him - Blighty. Was it egg white?
I definitely don't think it was egg white. Are you sure?
Yeah, the stuff that I kind of excavated out of there
definitely wasn't egg white. Wasn't egg white, OK. No, no.
So this is just like glue, basically? So...
But you're not going to call it glue, it's an adhesive.
It's an adhesive, yes. OK.
It's a conservation grade epoxy that's specially made
for ceramics, basically. OK.
And it's got really good non-yellowing qualities.
It adheres really well, but it's also reversible.
Why do you want it to be reversible?
You want it to stick, though, don't you?
So you never want the adhesive that you use
to actually be harder than the object that you're sticking.
If people in the future want to take this piece apart
and, you know, redo it...
Because perhaps, you know, with time, the repair breaks down. OK.
..then you can do that quite easily.
So they won't cause any more damage by taking it apart. Exactly.
But if it was stronger, then it could just rip it all apart.
Exactly, yeah. It's a real problem when I come across that.
I'm just going to pop his head back on.
So your timing is quite good, actually.
Yeah, I know. I might need a finger.
Oh, let me get my finger ready. I might be all right, actually.
Seriously?! I've just got my finger ready
and I'm not going to be able to use it.
Do you know what, Jay? I'm so used to just doing this on my own.
So my finger is redundant? Well...
That's not very fair, is it? Never say never.
Let's see, it might just tumble off.
Well, I hope it does!
Because this finger was really primed. Next time.
Thank you. Thanks for offering. Yeah.
Kirsten might be conquering her repair,
but silversmith Brenton is struggling.
He had hoped the 120-year-old magnifying glass
would come apart easily,
but he's having to excavate inside the handle
in an attempt to find out why it's refusing to yield.
So it's not pitch inside here.
It looks like...
Actually, it's shellac, I think,
which has been used to make this handle solid.
So I'm just slowly easing it out...
..which will then loosen this up and I'll be able to pull it out.
It's going to be slow and laborious, so I've just got to chip it all away
and then hopefully I'll be able to pull this rod out.
But at the moment, there's no way that's coming out
without breaking it.
Shellac does melt when you heat it up,
so I'm just going to try and warm this up a bit.
This is really hot now.
The shellac inside's all melted
and I'm just going to see if I can get this off.
With a bit of luck...
..it'll just pull off here.
There we go. That's got that little thing off. Brilliant.
So the melted shellac in there is now no longer gripping on to that
and we can now set about repairing this handle.
That's quite hard to get that apart.
I'm really pleased we got that apart without completely breaking it.
Brenton has to make all the wafer- thin pieces of bent and crumpled
silver lie flat enough to fit together in one smooth handle.
We're going to try and tidy up all of these joints
that they fit together nicely.
So I'm just cleaning the melted shellac
ready for me to straighten this out.
OK, so now we just need to start...
..straightening this out a bit.
As a silversmith, you can work on all sorts of metals.
I've made wings for racing cars,
rings for people who're getting married, so all kinds of metal.
Most metal acts the same way - most metal bends,
most metal joins together.
It's just working out the best way of doing each one.
Once the metal is straightened, Brenton can fix the pieces together,
usually done by soldering.
But the magnifying glass has thrown him yet another curveball.
This silver is so thin.
It's too thin for me to risk soldering.
As soon as I touch a flame against this,
I fear it may disappear into a pool of molten silver.
It's such a long solder joint to do.
I think the best thing to do is to glue these two things back together
when they're straightened out.
Blighty, the porcelain British soldier,
is almost ready for action.
His head is firmly back on his shoulders
and Kirsten has mended his chipped cap.
Now she must emulate the unusual Titanian ware glaze -
a special glazing technique that uses titanium oxide
to achieve the mottled-coloured high gloss finish.
This has got this Titanian glaze on it.
It's got a very sort of high shine on it,
so I'm going to have to try and mimic that,
which...might prove tricky.
That's starting to disappear quite nicely now.
This took me a few goes to actually
get the right sort of combination of pigments.
Now Martin is back at the workshop, eager to see his loyal comrade.
Blighty is a representation of happy memories for me
of my grandfather and grandmother.
He's been in my life really from as long as I can remember.
To see him fully repaired, it's strange really
because, you know, I always remember it being broken
but it was always a little bit sad that he wasn't perfect.
But I'm sure it will be amazing to have it back
in wonderful condition again.
Oh, Martin. Hello. Hi. Come across.
Nice to see you again. Yeah, and you. All right?
Excited? Apprehensive.
Oh, apprehensive? Yeah, a little bit nervous.
I've taken very good care of Blighty. Oh, great.
So I won't keep you in anticipation any longer.
Here it is.
Oh, it's amazing.
That's tremendous. Gosh.
And no chip on the cap.
Absolutely. I filled that in for you.
That's amazing.
Did you discover how his head was stuck on? What was used?
Do you know? I know you mentioned about the egg white,
but I don't think what I took off there was egg white.
It was actually quite rubbery and quite sort of stringy. Yeah.
More like impact adhesive. Yeah, absolutely.
And it was quite tough to get apart, actually. I bet it was.
Tougher than I thought!
And you had fun mixing up the glaze? Yeah.
It's so highly glazed,
I thought it might be quite difficult to mimic that.
But hopefully you're happy with... I can't tell!
I can't see anything. Amazing.
I mean, even the chip at the cap, at the peak of the cap, is gone.
You can't even feel where it was.
That's great, good. Oh, it's amazing.
That's tremendous.
For just under 100 years old...
Well, hopefully it's good to go for another 100. Brilliant.
It's fantastic. Thank you very much. You're very welcome.
It's much appreciated. It's been an absolute pleasure. Super.
I'm sure Grandad up in heaven will be saying to my grandma
that's how she should have done it in the first place. Oh!
It is amazing.
If you're happy, I'll wrap that up for you. Please.
Oh, yes! I've just got to get it back home in one piece!
Yeah, I know.
The repair exceeds expectations.
I expected it to be good, but it's even better.
Very, very impressive work.
My grandfather was a master thrower,
he threw by hand and he appreciated the craft
that went into making Blighty
and it's a lasting memory to his skills
and the skills of the craftsman that made the figure in the first place.
In his quest to repair a Victorian magnifying glass,
traditional silversmith Brenton is having to use some non-traditional
methods to achieve the best result possible.
I'm now epoxy gluing it back together.
I'm going to need quite a lot of it because I've got to replace
the shellac that I've taken out of the handle,
and the handle's quite hollow now and it needs something to keep it
in place, keep it strong.
So it will be full of the epoxy rather than full of shellac.
So epoxy glue is a two-part glue
which chemically, when mixed together,
is a really, really hard, strong glue
and it's used for holding boats together and all sorts of things.
It's one of the strongest glues you can get.
And this is quite rapid one and where it's squeezed out,
I've got to work quite hard at this and quite quickly.
So what I've got to do is be very
careful where I put this stuff.
This is very tricky to get it all lined up because the metal
is so thin and it will be stuck together
and it won't come apart again.
But it's trying to get it to look pretty as well.
I'm just trying to get the side with the hallmark looking the best
because there's a good side and a bad side.
Just using a bit of wire wool here just to get the little bits
of epoxy off and then once they're off, I'll give it a final polish.
It really has been a long day on this.
It's been a really, really, really tough repair
because the silver was so torn and so thin,
and getting all the little flaps to go back in their place
has been really tough, but I'm pretty happy that we've made
the best of this item.
The handle's back where it should be.
It's ready to go. So, yeah, happy.
Owner Jackie will be equally happy to see her grandmother's
magnifying glass and all the fond memories it inspires.
Its once-torn and jagged shards of metal have been
coaxed back into place,
restoring it to the ornate silverware accessory
that would have been pride of place in a Victorian drawing room.
Hello. How are you doing? Hi. Are you all right? Yes, thank you.
Yes, brilliant. Thanks. Good.
So you brought in a magnifying glass. I did.
Do you remember what it was like?
Dangerous. Dangerous.
OK, we've had a little play with it and do you want to have a look?
Please! OK.
Oh, my word.
Can I touch it? Of course you can. You can.
Oh, that's genius.
That is fantastic.
Oh! Thank you.
Brilliant. I'm glad you're pleased.
Gosh.
I think the great thing about this is that now it can
be part of my life again.
I can use it and it can be centre stage again,
and it just brings back so many memories.
Just fantastic. Thank you.
OK, so I had a little dig around and I found the hallmark on it -
it's just under your thumb there.
You'll probably need a magnifying glass to see it.
I don't know where you're going to get one of those!
But it was made by Adie & Lovekin in Birmingham in 1894.
Gosh! Fabulous.
1894?! 1894.
So it's had a bit of... Yeah. It's got some age to it.
Well, Granny was born in 1902, so it would have been...
It probably belonged to her parents, I'm guessing. Probably.
And then she would have been given it.
But they'd have probably bought it new.
Oh, that's really interesting.
So now you have it in your hands, what kind of memories does
it bring back?
Well, it was always centre stage... Right.
..and it will be again,
because it's been locked away in a spare room,
consigned to oblivion where it can't lacerate any guests.
But now it can be back in the centre of life.
And it was always in the centre of Granny's table,
and it'll be in the centre of my sitting room now.
So, brilliant. Thank you. Excellent.
So thank you for bringing it in. Brilliant.
Thank you very much indeed.
I shall be very careful. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.
Amazed, absolutely amazed.
It's wonderful that it's fixed now.
And every day now I'll see it and remind me of my mad old granny.
Join us next time as more cherished memories are revived...
Oh, my God! Oh, wow!
..and family treasures rescued in the Repair Shop.
SHE GASPS