03x10 - Art-Nouveau Hand Mirror

[bunniefuu]

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...

THEY GASP
..back to life.

Oh, my God!

In The Repair Shop today,
silversmith Brenton uses talents

he didn't know he possessed.

This job comes with all sorts
of challenges.

I didn't think I'd be a
plastic surgeon but here we go.

The first nose
I've ever had to make.

While furniture restorers
Will and Graham

prepare to perform some
reconstructive surgery of their own.

All of a sudden, I heard a big
scream and a crack and I rushed in
and Mum was on the floor.

We just sat down and it went bang.

Did you go for Mum first or did you
go for the chair first?

Mum first! If I went for the chair
first, I wouldn't be standing here.

But first to arrive at
The Repair Shop is Cheryl Matthews

and her daughter Philippa,
from Wolverhampton.

Hello. Nice to meet you. Likewise.
In you come, ladies.

Cheryl and Pip have an unusual
timepiece

that needs the expert eye
of Steve Fletcher.

Hello. Hello. I'm Steve. Hello.
Nice to meet you. I'm Cheryl.

Pip. Nice to meet you. Hi, Pip.
A lady holding a swinging clock.

Yes. You said it swings.
What do you mean by "it swings"?

Well, that little thing that's
fallen off, it pivots on this.

And this has got little spikes on...

And those spikes... And the two
spikes rest on that, and it swings.

It's lovely to see it going, as
well.

I've seen these before, they're
sometimes called a barmaid clock.

Right. She's a barmaid, then, yeah?
So what's the story behind this one?

It was my grandparents'
wedding present.

Right. They got married
in the late '20s.

They passed it on to my mum... OK.
..and then Mum passed it on to me.

Unfortunately, it's in this
state now,

so Mum gave it to me on the premise
that I looked after it.

I don't feel like I've looked
after it. OK. It's in a box.

So it would be lovely to get it back
in the way it should be.

Nan doesn't know it looks like this,
does she? No.

She knows it as fully-working, then.

It was whole when she gave it me.
Not in a box in bits. No.

OK. Oh, h*-h*!
We'll keep it a secret.

THEY LAUGH
Won't tell her. She'll never know.

When was the last time it was
working? About the '70s.

Oh, right. OK. Yeah.
Not for a long time. No.

It's always been awkward,
it's always been hard to keep going.

It used to be on the mantelpiece.
Right.

And if ever they leant on the
mantelpiece,

the clock would stop swinging.

So when my mum had it she put
a glass shelf

in the corner of the room
so that nobody would touch it.

OK. And it did used to swing but it
just never kept going, kept good
time.

And there's obviously been
some work done to it.

Yeah. My father-in-law tried
but unfortunately he's not a clock
or a watch mender.

But, no, I couldn't get anybody
else to look at it. OK.

I've been to two or three clock
menders and they wouldn't look it.

I mean, they are regarded as a
slightly... A problem clock.

Are they? That doesn't surprise me.

THEY LAUGH
Yeah.

And I can see that your
father-in-law's had fun and games

getting this back off. Yes.

Undoing it is a real
difficult thing,

unless you know
what you're doing. Right.

So there's lots of bits and pieces
in the box here, so I'm hoping that

all the bits are here.
Yes, I think they are.

I hope so. Yeah. That becomes a bit
of a problem. Yes.

Not for you, Steve, nothing's a
problem for you. Come on.

Makes it more difficult.
Let's put it that way.

More difficult. Well, we can handle
that, can't we, Steve? Yeah, we can.

Great stuff. Well, thank you for
bringing it in. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you very much.
You take care.

I feel bad when I look at the clock.

It's one of the few things that have
come down from my grandparents.

Mum remembers it when she was a
girl, I remember when I was a girl

and then because we're going down
the female line, it would be lovely

to pass it down to Pip as well.

Once Steve's finished with it, I
think I'll be kidnapping it off
you.

I like it. You don't need it.

You haven't got anywhere to put
it yet! Need a house first.

Then I've got a clock already, so...

So this is a problem clock. You know
about these kind of ones.

Some of them are problem clocks,
yeah,

and this one really has been
through the mill.

So why are these clocks a big
problem, then?

Because they have a small
weight inside

that just swings one way
then the other,

just enough to swing the pendulum
one way and another as well.

So that will explain when they was
leaning on the mantelpiece,
it would stop working.

Well, exactly. All of that. Yes.
So all these things you know.

Fully in control. Yep.
Everything's going to be hunky-dory.

I'm hoping all the bits are there.

I'm really hoping all the bits
are there. Hoping all the bits are
there.

Well, I'm going to wish you luck.
All right. All right, see ya.

Cheryl's father-in-law has had real
fun and games,

especially trying
to get the back off of it.

And also on this shaft here, he's
filed it almost half away.

This is not uncommon to see this
sort of thing happen to clocks

when people are
trying to fix it themselves

and don't know the right
way of doing things.

They can often cause more damage...

..than cure the problem.

I'm really hoping that I've got
all the rest of the bits and pieces.

I think I have, actually, and the
rest of the stuff in this box

that she brought along, has got
nothing whatsoever to do with the
clock.

So everything I've got is here.

These swinger or mystery clocks
were first patented in the 1860s.

This one dates from the early 20th
century

and was a popular model made by the
German clockmakers, Junghans.

The other thing I need to do
is take this dial off

and take this over to Kirsten.

I know she'll make a lovely job
at filling these chips.

So it's over to The Repair Shop's
ceramics conservator Kirsten.

Hi, Steve. Well, that's very diddy,
isn't it? It is diddy.

What do you reckon?

Obviously it's been bashed around,
hasn't it?

It's lost quite a lot of the enamel.
It has, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I can certainly do,

like, a coloured fill on that for
you. OK. I'll do my best.

Brilliant. Get my special specs out.
Excellent. OK.

Not a desperate hurry. 25 minutes?

LAUGHS
Leave it with me. OK.

Liz Bradbury has brought
a tarnished memento

given to her by a very special lady.

Silversmith Brenton West
is standing by.

Hi, you must be Liz. Hi.

I'm Brenton. Oh, nice to meet you,
Brenton. What have you brought?

I have brought my Great Auntie
May's silver hand mirror. OK.

At least I think it's silver.

Let's have a look.

Oh. Isn't that lovely?

Oh, dear. Yes.
We're missing some glass. Yes.

Can you remember the moment that
Great Aunt May gave you this?

Yes, very clearly.

She invited me into her bedroom
which, as children,

we didn't normally
go in to her bedroom. OK.

Did you think you were in trouble,
or...

Well I did sort of though,
because I thought, "Oh,"

you know, "What does she want?"
sort of thing.

and I knew it was something
special to her

because she took it
off her dressing table

and I was overwhelmed, really,
because... I bet you were.

I was quite a little child
at the time and it seemed such

an important, precious item.

So shiny and silvery and grown up.

Tell me, what did
Great Auntie May mean to you?

Does this bring back memories
of her?

Oh, it certainly does.

Once a year, we always went
to stay with her,

my dad, my mum, and myself
and my brother. OK.

She made it a lovely little
family holiday for us

in her little terraced house in
Swansea.

We always used to have
a lovely time there,

and she always used to take
the best care of us.

My father was one of her nephews
and she used to look after him

when he was little as well. Really?

She is one of these ladies
that was in the background.

But always there as well. Always
sort of holding everything together.

It's a lovely item. I love it.
It looks like it's silver.

Do you know if there's
any marks on it?

Any hallmarks or anything?

Is there something...on the handle?

No. I can't see.

Oh, is that something
at the end there?

Or is that just a dent?
That's just a dent, I think.

Well, also, the lady's nose
is missing.

OK. Yeah, I can see that. I might
have to make a new nose for her.

A little dainty nose. A little
dainty nose for the lady.

Yeah. OK. And then we need
to do a bit of repair on that

and then, obviously, a new mirror.

I regard it as a sort of a tribute
to Auntie May, really.

It was important to her and it's
come to represent her love and her
kindness.

Right. It's priceless to me.

When I hold the mirror, I'm always
sort of transported back

to when I was a child and my
holidays,

and that's what the mirror means to
me, it means...

..it means love, really.

So this is, this is a lovely, lovely
mirror and I know it means an awful

lot to Liz to have it repaired.

We've got a bunch of dents in here

that need to be... Need
to be removed.

And of course it needs a really,
really good polish.

The silver is very thin.

What happens is the thinnest parts,
where they're raised up here,

get worn away if it's put down
on a dressing table or if it's
polished too hard.

This poor little thin, hollow nose
is the highest point on the mirror.

It's the first thing that's going to
hit the table when you put it down.

And her nose has completely
disappeared.

So we're going to make her a solid
nose so that it lasts a bit longer

than her old hollow nose
she used to have.

Inside, I'm going to be heating
up some pitch,

which is what it had originally -
that's what this black is here.

I'll be putting the pitch in
to give the silver strength again

and to give the mirror some weight.

Now with the strategy in place
for this Art Nouveau looking glass,

Brenton can tackle
all the tarnished silver

with a trick he's used for years.

I'm going to put
some aluminium foil,

baking soda and some hot
water in the bowl.

It's ordinary baking soda,
so it's not poisonous.

No exact amount, just a good
old dollop of it.

You may put your own
piece of silver in here,

as long as it's silver on its own,

no pieces of wood or ivory
or...if it's got...

If it's still got its mirror in it,
I would not recommend this.

If it's a silver spoon
or something like that,

or a coin, it will be fine.

The silver has to be in contact
with the aluminium paper,

the aluminium foil,
for the reaction to occur.

And, indeed, if you look at it
you can see

it's starting to clean up already.

So I'm just going to put this in.

Leave it in the aluminium foil, I'll
probably put that over the top of it

and we'll leave that for ten minutes
or so and we'll come back

and check it when it's done its bit.

Back inside the workshop,

Steve has discovered that a key
component of the barmaid clock
is beyond repair.

This has been really badly damaged.

The barrel arbor, and key.

The barrel arbor is the axel which
tightens the mainspring,

to power the clock movement.

Without it, the timepiece
can't be wound up.

I'm going to cut this end off.

I'm going to drill it.

And then put a new piece in it.

That will have a square on it.

And once I've done that you'll be
able to slide a key onto it,

in the normal way that you would
put a key into a clock.

That's quite a complex job, but
I'm going to get on with it now.

There we go.

This watchmaker's lathe
is a lovely piece of kit...

..for keeping things really
accurate.

The next job is I've got to make up
the square.

The little pivot that goes
into that hole.

I'm going to make a square out
of this blue steel.

This blue steel is really,
really strong.

When you put a key on it and turn
it, it's not going to bend.

It's not going to break.
It should be absolutely fine

once I put it in there,
it's very tough material.

Good. So that's perfect.

So next stage is I'm going
to turn it down

so that it's the right diameter
to fit into this hole.

That's a really good tight fit.

And job's a good 'un.

At her workbench, ceramics
conservator Kirsten

has cleaned decades of dirt
from the antique clock face.

But it's exposed several
deep chips in the enamel.

My plan now is to actually just try
and do a colour fill on these areas
of loss.

So for that I'm going to just use,
like, an adhesive,

which is specially
made for ceramics and glass,

and hopefully that's going to fill
these areas

and mimic the enamel quite nicely.

I'm going to add quite a lot
of titanium white

in the hope that it will make this
fill quite opaque

and block out the copper
that's on the base.

I'm going to try a little bit
here and see how it's looking.

I think that's looking quite good.

While Kirsten
works on the clock face...

..Steve is cleaning the rest of the
parts, which have accumulated

years of grime from sitting above
Cheryl's grandmother's fireplace.

You usually see a clock on the
mantelpiece above a fire,

which is not a good place
for a clock.

Because you get all the heat and
dust coming up from the fire.

I'm talking about open fires,
mainly.

This is very old-fashioned
clock-cleaning fluid,

it's an ammonia-based
water solution.

It's really quite satisfying
cleaning up clock parts.

You know when you get it back
together again, the whole clock's
going to look beautiful.

And also the next clockmaker can see
that it was done very well

the last time, and there's
a certain pride knowing that

you're handing it on to the next
clockmaker to take it apart

in the order that they know it's
been looked after well in the past.

Next to arrive is Joanne Silverstein
and her daughter Lisa,

with a distinctive piece of
furniture that's had
a catastrophic accident.

I'm Will. I'm Joanne. Joanne, very
nice to meet you. I'm Lisa.

Lisa. Very nice to meet you.
Lisa. Hi, Joanne. Graham.

I'm Lisa, the daughter. Hello.
We've been expecting you with this
interesting chair!

That I presume shouldn't be
in two pieces. No, absolutely not.

Is this an Eames chair?

It's an Eames lounge chair.
It's called a model 670.

The Repair Shop are calling on the
expertise of mid-century

furniture restorer Graham Mancha.

It's definitely an Eames chair and
it's a real one, because there's a
lot of copies.

This is quite an iconic chair
and I'm sure I've seen this before

with...is it like a footrest or an
ottoman, or...

Yes, there is a foot stool.
Yes, I do have that.

Do you? Right, so you have the set.

Well, I bought it in about 1962,
it's had plenty of use.

It was the first piece of furniture
I bought for my flat.

It was an iconic chair. You know,
it was THE furniture to have.

What were you doing in the '60s?
I came over from America, right.

I caught the accent. And I was
following a young photographer.

He had been sent over by American
Vogue to work for English Vogue.

Joanne and her late husband
Donald moved to London

from America in the swinging '60s.

Joanne was a model and successful
fashion designer.

Donald was the go-to photographer
for the biggest stars of the fashion

and music industries,
including Jimi Hendrix.

He did a series of very famous
photos of Hendrix

stripped to the waist,
and the big hair and so on.

Wearing, like, a medallion. Yeah.

Meeting those musicians
was quite exciting. I can imagine.

I wanted to keep the chair for Lisa
because it was her father's
favourite chair.

Spent a lot of time in it,
lots of memories,

just sitting there and us
being children, running around

while he was sitting in the chair,
watching all of us.

After two daughters,
four grandchildren spinning around,

it's pretty well done-in.

But it lasted all these years
until recently,

when we just sat down
and it went bang.

It literally just...snapped.

Literally... Snapped, snapped,
snapped. Yes.

I was with Mum and I went in to
the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

All of a sudden, I heard a big
scream and a crack and I rushed in.

Mum was on the floor.

Did you go for Mum first or did you
go for the chair first?

Mum first! If I went for the chair
first, I wouldn't be standing here!

So how did you feel when this broke?

I was absolutely devastated because
I had always promised Lisa
this chair. Her father's chair.

And I thought, "Oh, no. That's it."
That's it. Never happened.

Is this a straightforward-ish
sort of break and mend?

Well, it's not uncommon.

I've seen a few of them like this.

Because the chair depends on key
points,

which are these rubber mounts
under the arms,

and what's probably happened...

In fact, I'm sure what's happened
here, because it's broken here,

this mount has come away and,
unfortunately, the chair...

Were you sitting in it when it
broke? Yes.

What's probably happened
is, you sat in the chair,

this went... Yes. ..and as it broke,
you were leaning back, and it swung

round and unfortunately instead of
the mount coming away,

the plywood snapped. Right.
So it's quite serious.

I think it can probably be fixed
but it's going to actually require
a new lower-back panel.

Now, the problem there is this is
Brazilian rosewood.

You can't actually get it any more
because it's an endangered species.

So the new panel won't probably look
quite like this, if that's OK.

Well, that has to be, I imagine.

It's the fact that we want it fixed,
no matter how.

Do you feel that it's going to be
strong? It'll be strong,

but within the constraints
of the design.

So if I have any
great-grandchildren,

they could still spin around?

I think you could safely say they'd
be OK to do that, one at a time.

One at a time. One at a time,
definitely.

This chair's been loved, it's been
at home,

it's something you cherish and
has a lot of memories

and, to my mind,
I would say probably the main thing

is to actually get the thing up
and running again

and make it reliable, and have it
so it lasts.

I think it'll be fantastic.
It's such an emotional attachment
to this chair

and I so had promised to Lisa
for so long that if I couldn't
fulfil that promise,

I...would feel very bad about that.

Nice to meet you both. Nice to meet
you. Good luck with the repair!

I kind of feel a strong energetic
connection with that chair

and my dad, so that's why it's
really, really important.

Nice chair. It is. Or it was.
Shame it's in two pieces. It is.

I think it can be put back together
and... You think?

I'm pretty sure it can,
in actual fact. Yes, it can.

Not to be overly optimistic
about it.

Basically, we're going to replace
the lower-back panel,

that's this bit of plywood here,

because this is a write-off. Yeah.
The leather will be cleaned.

I'm going to tidy the base up.

And then it will be a case
of putting the thing back together.

Well, I will give you a hand back
up to the bench.

I'll take the lighter part. Yes.

There have been many imitations
of the Eames lounge chair.

The original was designed
by American husband and wife team

Charles and Ray Eames in 1956.

It remains a highly sought-after
piece of fashionable furniture.

Graham has become one of the world's
authorities in restoring these
chairs

and knows them like the back
of his hand.

This is the part of the back
that has broken.

Now, as I take this off, I can see
that it's actually been
repaired before.

You can see that in the light just
there,

there's actually a slight
sort of imperfection in the wood.

It broke in, say, a similar fashion
to what it's broken this time,

except this time the wood snapped
completely and you can't

do anything with that.

So, that's the broken panel
that's going to be disposed of.

That's scrap.

Silversmith Brenton has come
to the rescue

of a treasured Art Nouveau hand
mirror.

Its glass is long gone
and it's lost its lustre

after years of languishing
on a shelf.

But thanks to a trick of the trade,
this mirror may have a new
lease of life.

Hey, that's pretty good.

It's got most of the black
out of the details.

It's going to want a final
polish up,

but that little trick's worked well.

I'm going to give this
just a gentle polish over,

just to make it really,
really shiny.

It's still slightly dull.

Now that decades of dark tarnish
are erased,

Brenton can concentrate on crafting
a crucial missing feature.

So this job comes with all sorts
of challenges.

I didn't think I'd be a plastic
surgeon, but here we go.

In all these years
of silversmithing,

this is the first nose
I've ever had to make,

and it's actually much more
difficult than you think

cos a nose is a funny shape, and
this is a tiny, tiny little nose.

I'd love to have soldered a piece
in there and banged another nose out

but this metal is just so, so thin
that if I did anything like that

it would just split completely.

So I've got to... I've got to look
after the integrity of this mirror.

So I'm going to put that
through there.

We can have a nice little
button nose, like Liz wanted,

or we can have
a...big Pinocchio nose.

I think that be a bit silly,
so I think what we'll do,

we'll go for the little button nose.

I'm just going to glue that
into the hole from behind.

Next on the list, before he
can fit a new piece of glass,

Brenton must reinforce the structure
of this fragile keepsake

using a material called pitch.

So this is pine resin.

It's just a hard resin that
when it's hot becomes liquid

and when it's cool...

..it's hard, and it's ideal for
pouring in to hollow silver objects

that are very thin metal.

So, this will take a few minutes.

So, the pitch is slowly melting.

Once it's all liquid, I can pour
it into the back of the mirror.

So this smells like a pine
forest in summer, which is...

..quite rewarding, actually.

Pitch has been used to fill and give
weight to pieces crafted from gold

or silver sheets
for hundreds of years.

It was first discovered
in early Islamic jewellery.

We know it's ready
when all of this pitch has melted.

There's still a lump in there
that's slowly melting,

so any second now
this will be ready.

I don't want to pour it in
and have a big lump sticking up

in the middle, cos the mirror won't
fit in. It's got to be smooth.

So I'm just warming the mirror
up slightly,

so it's not shocked by the heat
of the pitch going in.

The mirror's cold
and the pitch is hot.

Just better just to have it slightly
warmed up.

Silver is a really good
conductor of heat,

so it doesn't need much
heat to do that. Right.

So I'm just pouring the pitch now.

Obviously, I can't put too much
in or the mirror won't fit.

I've got to put just enough in,

just to give that silver
some strength.

So this, because it's liquid, it's
naturally self-levelling.

If you look at the middle of that
pitch you can see the old pitch

that was in there before.

It's melting and floating to the top
of my new pitch,
which is quite nice.

Right. Put that down there.

Just got to level that a bit.

So I'm just making sure there's
enough room for the mirror.

Just removing any pitch out of the
way that's going to cause me
problems,

but I think that's about right now,
so I'm going to leave that to set

and then I'll try the mirror in
there when it's cooled down.

It'll probably take about
half an hour.

Restorer Graham Mancha is rescuing
a 20th-century design classic,

a genuine Eames chair.

Now he's got it in bits,
Graham examines the evidence.

Within minutes, he's deduced
the likely cause of the accident.

A suspect shock mount.

Essentially, to the untrained eye,
I mean, it pretty much looks OK

but in actual fact it's not.

This mount is actually sagging,
it's starting to twist

and it's much lower.

It means the back of the chair would
be much lower than it should be.

This one has been glued on before,
which is the reason it broke this

time, because it was an old mount

and you can't really glue
old mounts back.

This is a new mount.

The geometry of this and the
alignment is perfectly square and
straight.

But badly fitted mounts aren't the
only problem.

The seating panel has a weak spot.

I noticed earlier that on this side
there's a split

and it's not in just one laminate,

it's actually, there's a couple of
layers of laminate...have come
away.

So I'm going to use a gauge to
actually just see how deep that is.

So, that goes down quite a long way.

Eames chairs are such precision
pieces of engineering

that any slight defect in a single
component

can have a knock-on effect.

So, you've got a seven-layer ply.

This is splitting over two layers,

which severely compromises
the structure. It's not very strong.

And you're gluing the mount to that,
and the whole back of the chair

and the weight of the person sitting
in it are taken by this area here.

I don't really want Joanna
to have another accident

like she did when the thing
broke recently.

So what I'm going to do now is I'm
going to glue all that

and make sure
it's structurally sound

before I prepare and attach
the new shock mounts.

A few hours later, the base
panel is now solid and safe.

It does look, to me...

..all good.
So the shock mount should be fine.

I also noticed another thing
I've got to do is the plate.

You can probably see, if you
look at that you can just see

how bent it is along
the straight edge.

That's happened when the back
fell off.

So that needs
to be straightened out.

It's actually a very, very
strong piece of metal.

Every component
of the cherished chair

is examined,
refurbished or upgraded.

But the Brazilian rosewood panel
that can no longer be sourced must

be replaced with an alternative.

How're you doing, Graham? Hi.

Postman's been. Got a little
parcel for you. Oh.

Is that all right? Yeah.
Is that the right one, though?

Let's have a look.
Is that the right colour?

This is Santos.
This is Rio rosewood.

This is the closest we could get.

Clearly there's a variance in the
colour, this will wear in over time.

OK, so then my question
is, how are we...

Is that...you're just saying, "OK,
leave it like that and the sun will
age it."?

Or are we going to bleach this?

I mean, it's possible to do
that... Right

..but it's quite an involved
process, and we considered this,

Will and I discussed it.

Joanne's been informed of that
and the conclusion we came to

was that it's best
to leave it like this

and it's an honest repair.

OK. You've got to remember
this is a repair.

It's not conservation, and that is
the most practical solution.

It's an obvious repair and we can
see that it's obvious,

so we're going to leave it
in that colour? Yes.

After hours of long labour, it's
finally time to reconstruct this

pioneering piece of furniture.

How's it going? It's good.
If you can...

..offer that up. Yeah.
That goes there like that. OK.

And find the screws.

One either side.
Just do it finger-tight. Yeah.

We're not too far away
from completion.

No, it's getting there. This is like
flat-pack furniture, isn't it?

Yeah, it's funny. It's funny you
should say that.

Charles Eames did try
and design some furniture.

There was a shelving system
he designed,

but it was a bit ahead of its time.

In the end, it was actually mass...

It was actually assembled in the
factory because people couldn't
handle building the stuff at home.

It will take me an age
to put this together.

So the deal is, now that I've helped
you with this,

as soon as you get the upholstery
on, I'm the first one then gets to
sit in the chair.

OK. Yeah. Deal? That's a deal.
You can test it.

Perfect. Deal.

At his bench, Steve is also
busy reassembling.

He's getting ready to see
if the barmaid clock

will ever call time again.

Been quite a nice clock to work
on actually because...

..repairing the barrel arbor and
doing some other repair work

is proper clockmaking, which I
particularly quite like so, nice.

Nice job. Just hope it's going to
work.

This is quite a tricky piece
to pop in.

So this is a tiny,
tiny little pendulum...

..that ticks one way and then
the other way.

And that's all the power
it needs to swing...

..this big pendulum.

I just think it's fantastic that
a tiny, tiny little weight

is just moving one way and then the
other way.

So it's the whole clock that
acts as a pendulum

that will regulate itself.

But there is one part that Steve's
still waiting to get his hands on.

The enamel clock face.

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Is that all right? That's
brilliant. OK. Absolutely brilliant.

I look forward to seeing her
holding it.

So it'll be swinging like that
next time you see it. Very cheeky.

THEY LAUGH

With the clock reassembled, it's
time to see if all Steve's hard work
has paid off.

This is the best part, really,
of doing this job.

Just to see whether it does
tick or not.

This is the...

..moment of truth.

So far, so good.

HE SIGHS
Good.

Fingers crossed it's going
to carry on going.

This unusual time piece arrived
in bits after an attempted repair

at home went wrong.

But with some expert reconstruction
and a little TLC,

it's happy hour for the barmaid
once again.

And just in time for Cheryl
and Pip's return.

Hello. Hello. How are you?

Fine, and you? Good, thank you.

Nice to see you again. You too.
You've been looking forward to this?

We have, yes.

What are you hoping for?

I'm hoping for a perfect clock.

A perfect clock. Oh, my word.

I won't keep you in suspense
any longer.

Oh, she's lovely.
She looks lovely.

Smashing. Just as I remember it.
That's lovely.

Did you have to do a lot
of work to it?

A heck of a lot of work.
Did you? Yes. Yeah.

I'm not surprised.

Having it working again, does that
bring back any memories?

Yes. Yeah, because I remember seeing
it like that on the glass shelf.

Now it's lovely to see it.

In my mind's eye I can see it on the
glass shelf in the living room.

It's gorgeous. Lovely. Thank you.

That's smashing.
You're very welcome.

Quite mesmerizing to watch, isn't
it? It's lovely. It is.

Yeah, yeah. And she looks
really happy as well, doesn't she?

Oh, Mum will be really, really
pleased with it now.

Excellent. All right.
OK. All right. Bye.

Oh, it's absolutely wonderful
getting the barmaid clock back.

So happy. Didn't think she'd be in
such good condition.

I've seen it with her holding the
clock but I've never seen it
ticking. It's just fabulous.

It's just wonderful to see it
working again. And it's family.

It's not just an object.

It made me think of my mum.

She'd be so happy to see it working.
Yeah. Cos it comes from Nan and
Grandad.

Silversmith Brenton is adding
the final flourishes

to an Art Nouveau hand mirror.

Its transformation is a reflection
of hours of Brenton's hard work.

It arrived dull, dented

and with several important features
completely missing.

Now, owner Liz is back to see her
much-loved great aunt's
mirror again.

I'm really excited.

I can't wait to see what
Brenton has done

and I'm hoping that he's mended
the nose

and that it's all shiny and new
and it has a glass in it.

Hi, Liz. Nice to see you again.
Hi. Nice to see you again.

All right. Evening, Liz.
You all right? I'm fine, thanks.

That's good.

You've come to pick up... My Great
Auntie May's silver hand mirror.

And it had sort of Art Nouveau...
I figure that's the one.

Art Nouveau lady on the front.
Right.

And she had something missing,
didn't she? Her nose was missing.

There you go. Oh!

SHE GASPS

That is so beautiful!

Thank you so much!

May I? Of course! It's yours.

Thank you, Brenton.
It's all right.

That is so beautiful.

And she has got a nose.
She has got a nose.

She has got a nose!

And she's... And you've cleaned
it all for me. Thank you.

It's beautifully shiny. I'm going to
turn it round now and see.

Oh! And it's got glass in it!

I can see myself!

That is so fantastic! So when was
the last time you used that?

Oh, about 15 years ago.
Might be longer.

I did try and get it repaired
but nobody could do it.

So... Come to the best here.
Oh, my goodness.

I'm not allowed to leap across here
and give you a hug, am I?

He can come around
and give you a hug.

He's a gentleman, he should be
coming around to give you a hug.

Can I? Oh, thank you so much.
My pleasure.

Thank you so much. My pleasure.
My pleasure. Really lovely.

I'm just thrilled because it brings
back lovely memories for me.

When I hold it, it takes me right
back to the moment when she gave it
to me...

CLEARS THROAT
..and how amazed I was.

It's a nice thing and it wanted
repairing and bringing back to life.

It's so lovely to feel and touch.

Do I have to be really careful
around this?

Really careful around all of it. The
nose is probably the strongest bit.

Oh, right. The nose is about the
only bit you don't need to be
careful about, cos it's solid.

But the rest of it, you have
to be quite careful. OK.

Oh, I'm thrilled to bits.
Are you? Yeah.

I really am. Good. That's the aim.

Perhaps I can pass it on to someone.

Who are you going to pass this on
to? Well, I'm...

You know, I might... One day,
I might have a granddaughter.

Because I've got two lovely sons.

And one day they might have
children. OK.

Mind you, I don't know what I'll do
if I have two granddaughters.

Then you have got a problem,
haven't you!

I shall hang on to it
as long as I possibly can.

Right. So you're going to use it
until you get a granddaughter.

Definitely. Right. OK.

I'm feeling really elated
that my mirror has been mended.

It looks just the way that it did
when Auntie May gave it to me.

Beautiful and shiny and lovely.

Back in the workshop, the Eames
lounge chair is undergoing a full

service from an expert in
mid-century designer furniture,
Graham.

So, the headrest cushion is
identical to this one

but it goes up the other way,

and it's part of the design that
these cushions can be rotated

to even out the wear.

Not a lot of people know that
but it's actually part of the design

that was intended to be done,
as with the ottoman cushion

and the seat.

So that's the cushions done and now
I'm going to put the arms on.

Hey, Will. It's done.

HE CHUCKLES

Look at that. It looks really good.

Thank you. Really good.

And hopefully it functions
as it should do. Let's see.

Great. Be my guest. Lovely.

Oh, that's good. Spin.

That is really good.

I probably need about five more
minutes of testing.

OK. Five minutes.
Five minutes. Five minutes.

This is lovely.

The well-loved, well-used chair

arrived scuffed, tired
and broken in two.

But now with the rosewood panel
and broken mounts replaced,

and the leather upholstery
reconditioned,

it's looking as good as it
did in its heyday.

It's now ready to be delivered
back to Joanne and Lisa.

Look, Mum. That's sitting on the
Eames chair. The Eames chair.

It was the very first piece of
furniture I ever bought in England.

I literally had one chair

and a kitchen table.

So it was a very important chair.

Besides being a sort of icon chair.

I'd rather have the one
chair than lots of other furniture.

Because it was such an exciting
period in my life,

it means a lot to me.

OK, let's go. Oh!
SHE GASPS

Woohoo! Present! I love presents.

And this is a big one. I know.

Wow.

Look how shiny it is!
SHE GASPS

Wow, look.

Hold on, let's just see the back.
Fantastic!

Wow. Wow. God, that's amazing.

It's incredible. This is the bit
that was broken.

Are you sure this is the same chair?
It looks fabulous.

Every bit of it looks fantastic.

OK, Mum, I'm going for a spin.
Don't break it again, please.

You're much bigger now, remember.
Exactly.

Spin me round. Spin me round.

SHE LAUGHS
Fantastic!

That's it. Once. Twice. Twice.

OK. A-a-and...
OK, now your go, Mum.

That's enough.
I'm going to have a sit.

Oh, wow. You know, it feels better
than it ever felt.

Brings back all the memories,
doesn't it? Of course.

You can't replace this, can you?
You can't. No, no.

It's definitely, you know,
part of a time.

It was just a very special time,
when I used to be able to sit

with my dad quietly on the chair,
so it's wonderful to have it back

repaired and secure, and not
to break again.

Spin! More spin!

I'm so thrilled. I'm so happy
to have the chair back,

and it's been done so beautifully.

It's to stay forever with lots
of swinging and fun and memories.

Does that feel good? Ah, yes!

Join us next time, as more precious
pieces are rescued...

We've had to make things worse
before we got better.

..and their cherished memories
restored... Oh, my Lord!

..in The Repair Shop.