The Repair Shop (2017–…): Season 7, Episode 3 - Episode #7.3 - full transcript
Jay Blades and the team bring three treasured family heirlooms, and the memories they hold, back to life. Toy restorers Julie and Amanda welcome a stuffed monkey called Midge into the barn. Owner Charles received the toy primate a...
Welcome to The Repair Shop,
where precious but faded
treasures... This is bad.
I don't think I've ever seen a chair
quite so broken as this.
..are restored
to their former glory.
That's lovely. Isn't it?
That's lovely, isn't it?
Furniture restorer Jay Blades...
Bringing history back to life
is what makes The Repair Shop
so special.
..and a dream team of expert
craftspeople...
Amazing! It's a bit like brain
surgery.
Go on! ..come together to work
their magic.
Yahoo! When you look at something
that looks so hopeless, like this,
it makes me even more determined
to get it back.
That's teamwork.
Employing heritage craft skills
passed down the generations.
It is a privilege to be able to do
something for somebody that means
so much to them.
Preserving irreplaceable heirlooms.
To bring those pieces back to life
is just the most wonderful thing
and I'd like to do it forever.
The team will restore the items...
Whoa!
..the memories... I'm so happy to
see it.
..and unlock the stories that they
hold.
It's made it all worthwhile.
In The Repair Shop today...
Come, Midge, give us your hand.
There's something else
going on here, I think.
..monkey business with Julie
and Amanda.
This is much more serious.
We're going to have to be
much more invasive than we
intended to be.
While Will transforms a rough
block of wood...
I've got bits of a head.
I've got a chin there. ..into
a finely carved figurine.
I'm going to keep on chipping away
now
until her face starts to reveal
itself to me.
First, in an unusual twist
of events,
Daniel McDonald is bringing tools
TO the repair shop.
He's hoping Dominic Chinea
will have the mettle to renovate
this 90-year-old workman's vice.
Wow.
Hello. Hello. How are you doing?
Are you all right? Yeah, good.
Can I put this down? Yeah, yeah!
Thank you. That must weigh a ton!
It is a little bit heavy.
I'm Jay. Nice to meet you.
And you are? Daniel.
Daniel. Daniel, hi. I'm Dom.
Hi, Dom. Nice to see you.
I want to know why you've got a
vice. Why I've got a vice.
Well, it's not my vice originally.
Whose is it? It started off with my
great-grandad.
OK. So my great-grandad and my
grandad, they were both engineers.
Right. My great-grandad, I know he
used to work for Rolls-Royce.
So he passed it on to my grandad.
Grandad gave it to my dad. OK.
Now, my dad, he was a car mechanic.
So I remember him using this...
Right. ..in the back garden.
It was on the wall.
So I remember him using it
until I was about, say,
ten years old, something like that.
I'm 42 now.
Right. Right. So it sort of sat
at the top of the garden
about 30-odd years.
What...? Outside. Outside?
Just outside.
Oh, no! Outside? Yeah. Yeah.
And then, last year, I remembered
him using this vice
and I was struggling -
I've got an old XR3i.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
No! What, Ford?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You've got an XR3i Ford?
Yeah. At home.
Yeah. And you brought us a vice?
I'm afraid so. But I need the vice
to be able to fix the car!
Are you a mechanic, then? No, I'm
not a mechanic. Are you not?
I'm a university lecturer. What?
So you're not a mechanic?
No. No engineering at all?
None whatsoever.
So it doesn't actually look too bad.
Er... This is... Oh, OK, this is...
This is the bit that's seized,
has it? That won't move.
So that should be sliding in and out
to clamp things,
but... No, it's not budging.
LAUGHTER
You're laughing. You know how
stuck that is, don't you?
I spent a week trying to free it
and I couldn't.
Wow. I used penetrating
oil, um...for three days.
I used cola for three days,
just dousing it and soaking it.
Nothing. He knows. He knows what
he's doing.
Wow. He's like, "It's your problem
now." You deal with it!
At least this still spins, does it,
or...? This is loose? Er...
No, OK.
Oh, I see.
That should not happen. No, it
shouldn't.
It shouldn't happen. So that should
screw in.
Yeah. Which is broken.
That's broken, as well.
Great.
OK.
Wow. This is not going to be an easy
one.
Yeah. It's not going to be easy.
Yeah.
OK. Daniel, I can't wait to see
what he does with this one.
So thank you.
Pleasure meeting you.
All I can say is good luck
and thank you very much.
Take care. See you soon.
You take care. All right. Bye-bye.
Wow. It's seized, isn't it?
This is bad.
Yeah!
The vice has got this
connection between the generations.
It would be really nice
if I was able to use it and work
with it, the same as my
great-grandad and my grandad did.
And then I could pass it on, maybe,
to my son.
Plan A. I'm going to try and soak
the vice in a solution of acetone
and automatic gearbox fluid,
which sounds bizarre but,
fingers crossed, it's going to work
its way in to that seized-up area
and hopefully
free up that mechanism.
I'm going to leave that to sit
in there and soak for as long
as I possibly can.
And, fingers crossed, this is
going to work.
Next, another visitor -
and a friend.
Charles Longley, from Doncaster,
has brought a cheeky childhood chum
for the attention of toy restorers
Julie Tatchell
and Amanda Middleditch.
BOTH: Oh!
LAUGHTER
Hello.
Oh, look!
Oh, who is this?
This is Midge. Hello, Midge.
In his onesie.
Tell me about Midge.
Well, Midge has had two lives.
His first life was he was bought
for me in the early '60s. OK.
He was like my teddy bear.
Everywhere I went,
he was on my shoulders -
day trips, holidays.
And then, when he was at home,
he lived at the bottom
of my bunk bed. Best friend,
you know. Best friend.
So what happened that changed
this that he had a second life?
Midge started his second life,
which was a working monkey on Mum
and Dad's market stall
at Barnsley Market. A monkey with a
job? He got a job!
Dad's store was called
Aladdin's Cave. OK.
And he sold everything.
Dad had got
him attached to the frame.
And then there was some
kind of pulley system
going on where there was a nylon
string to his arm.
So Midge would wave to the kids.
The kids just couldn't believe it,
because they couldn't see the nylon.
Yeah. And thought, "This
monkey's waving at me," you know.
And every time I went, Midge had
more and more props attached to him.
He had watched straps on.
Clip-on earrings!
He would have something
different on him every week.
Could I take a look at him?
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Take him out of his onesie.
Come on, Midge.
So Midge was made
by a company called
the Dean's Rag Book Company.
Right. And it was a series that
they had called True To Life.
Right. And the way that they managed
to get such a wonderful,
realistic look
was to make the extremities
out of natural rubber.
And that's why he has this
deterioration of the rubber.
Right. Midge is just showing the
signs of a good, full,
busy working life. Yeah.
Do you think you could fill him
out a bit now,
get a good meal? Absolutely.
And his fur will come up lovely.
Will it? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
He's going to look a few years
younger when you see him again.
Is he? Yeah. Aren't you?
So what plans have you got for
Midge, if we can get him looking
a bit more sprightly.
I've got two kids. You know,
hopefully, he'll belong to them one
day and their children.
So thank you so much for bringing
Midge and trusting us with him.
I know he's in good hands.
We'll let you know when he's ready.
Thanks a lot. All right.
Thank you. Bye, Midge.
Bye, Charlie. Bye!
Midge has been in our family now
for 55, 60 years, so
he's a big part of my family. He's
a great memory
and a great memory of Mum and Dad.
So I need Midge to go on.
Look at that face. I know!
He's adorable. He's got so much
character, hasn't he? Yeah.
His little hands. We're not going to
be able to change that,
unfortunately. He's always
going to have this sort of twisted
look to his hand. But, like you say,
it's part of his age.
Well, we could get all the rubber
features cleaned. Yeah.
And then go with the
conservation-grade coating. Yeah.
At least, that way, we'll stop
them getting worse.
Yeah, absolutely. I don't think I
should do it while
he's still
attached to all his fur.
You want him all
taken apart?
All the hands and feet
and head and ears?
Why don't we see if we can at least
peel back the fur. Edges.
I'll go and see if I can get
some of that glue. OK.
We'll be all right, won't we, mate?
Come on, Midge, give us your hand.
There's something else
going on here, I think.
OK.
So what I've discovered
here is, inside Midge's furry body
is a cotton body.
So it's almost like they made
a body and then dressed
it in a furry onesie.
It's the only way I can describe
it.
But the body is made or
engineered
in such a way that it enabled
the legs and everything
to move in a monkey-type way.
And the cotton body is in a bad
way...
..which means that this is
much more serious.
We're going to have to replace
all of this cotton inner body.
So, yeah, it's not good for Midge,
really, because it means
that we're going to have to be much
more invasive
than we intended to be.
But, anyway, I've got one off.
I'll keep going.
In the outdoor workshop, Dom's plan
of soaking the immoveable vice
has been a wash-out.
This vice is still so seized.
I mean, I'm hitting it quite hard
with this hammer - as hard as I
dare, at the moment,
and it is not
showing any signs of budging.
Dom! Oh, sorry, Jay. Are you
all right? What are you doing?
Being perfectly honest, I'm
not having a great time.
I can really feel Daniel's pain
with trying to get this vice
apart. And I'm kind of running
out of options. This is really my
last resort now.
My plan of attack, really, is
to heat this up.
By heating it up, when it gets up to
maybe 400 degrees,
the metal will
expand ever so slightly.
And that's what we need to happen
to just try and break that bond.
I've got hydraulic jaws that can put
out half a tonne of pressure.
We're going to put in there, pushing
outwards, as well. Right.
And then your power of your right
arm to whack the back of that.
And I'm terrified, if I'm honest
with you.
There's a real big risk here
that we could crack it.
All right. Let's give it a go.
See what happens.
That must be hot enough.
Look at it.
Yes, let's give it a go.
OK, I'm going to put
this in there. You pump it for us.
Watch your hands.
Are we in?
Right, OK. Go steady now.
Hydraulic fluid is pumped in under
high pressure... Go on.
..pushing the jaws apart
in an effort to open
the locked-up vice.
Just think of Daniel's grandad
whilst you're doing that!
My heart is like... I know! OK.
Got to get this open.
So I've got my line here -
ambitiously hoping that a couple of
whacks there,
that's going to creep forwards.
No.
No. Hold on. Come on. I'm going
to hit it now.
Come on, Jay, hit it.
No. That wasn't even slightly
going, was it?
All right. Fire.
OK.
I am feeling super-nervous.
Come on, Jay!
Cor.
I really thought that would go.
I mean... Next time. Third time
lucky.
Going to get it?
I've got a really good feeling about
this one, Dom. Here we go.
That's good.
OK? Good. Let's get some good
pressure in there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's moving.
Yes. See how easy it's going now?
Go on!
It's going, it's going!
It's out! Couldn't have done that
without you. That was a definite
team effort. Daniel's got to know
how hard we worked on that one.
Worth it, though.
I'm so chuffed. Well done, man.
Done now. Well done.
The next problem is the jaws
on the vice.
One is missing completely.
The other one is intact.
It's there, but it's very,
very rusty.
So the jaws of a vice are textured
pieces of metal that sit
on each face. So as you clamp the
part in the vice,
they've got a little bit of grip so
they can actually grip hold
of what you're trying to clamp.
They were removable things -
they're designed to unscrew
and be replaced.
Unfortunately, these haven't
been removed in a very long time.
The only real option I've got
is to cut it off.
Hopefully, by cutting it
into pieces, I'll be able to remove
the jaw. I just need to be really,
really careful because I'm going
to be cutting right up
to the actual casting of the vice.
And I don't dare nick that
with the angle grinder.
Oh, brilliant.
OK, here's the first piece
out. I've got to now keep
going over the whole of this jaw,
remove it all in sections.
With the old, rusty gripping jaws
removed, Dom can turn his attention
to the rest of the mechanism.
This is the sort of internal
main screw block
that, when you're turning
on that handle, locking things up
in the vice, this is essentially
the nut that that screws into.
So it's absolutely a key
part to the whole vice working.
It's what holds everything together.
And, of course,
it's snapped in half.
I've taken off the corner of each
piece
to make like a V-shaped kind
of valley, so I can fill that valley
back up with weld and it'll just
give me
a much stronger weld, hopefully.
Actually, that looks pretty good.
I mean, it's not the prettiest weld
I've ever done,
but strength
is the most important thing here.
Just need to knock that back
and dress it up with the grinder,
then it's almost ready.
Dom's assignment may be nearing
completion,
but new items
are always arriving.
Paula Becvar, from Sussex, is hoping
wood whizz Will Kirk can restore
a family heirloom that met a grisly
end at the hands - or the teeth -
of this playful pooch.
Hi there, I'm Will.
Hi, Will, I'm Paula.
Who's this? This is Dolly.
Ah. Dolly's the culprit.
Hello, you. Why we're here.
Right, what's in the bag?
Two wooden figurines that were
carved for my grandfather
by a man called Joe, in 1950.
Right.
And this is his wife.
Oh, that's been chewed off?!
Yes.
Yes. By Dolly.
By Dolly. Yes.
How did the damage occur, then?
I went out.
I didn't realise that I had knocked
Joe's wife off the side.
And when I came in... Dolly was only
four months at the time.
She thought it was one of her toys
and had chewed her head off.
So, um, yes. Wow.
She is lovely. I can't really blame
her too much.
She didn't know. Very sweet, aren't
you?
So where are these from and how
have they come into your possession?
My grandfather worked in the
wood-pulp industry and in the '40s
he moved to Sweden and became
managing director
of a Swedish company over there.
My grandfather was in charge
of thousands of acres of woodlands,
of replanting the trees
and chopping them down
and maintaining the forests.
The wood-pulp industry was extremely
important for Sweden,
and my grandfather, being
the director, was then recognised
for his contribution by
being knighted by the King.
Your grandfather was knighted by the
King of Sweden? That's amazing.
It is amazing. And, subsequently,
they became good friends
and the King would come over
and whenever he was in England,
they'd go out for dinner.
What's your grandfather's name?
Duncan Andrew. Duncan Andrew.
So did you ever get to meet
your grandfather?
I didn't, unfortunately,
and I wish I had.
He died a year before I was born,
but my mother tells me he lived life
to the full.
My mum used to go and visit him
when he was out there and my mother
was in the forest one day in Sweden,
holding my grandfather's hand,
with one of the men that worked
for him, called Joe.
And Joe reached into his pocket and
got out Joe and said, "I've carved
"this for you out of the trees
that I look after."
My grandfather was the most
amazing man.
Not only was he thought of greatly
by the people of Sweden, but also
the people that worked for him
clearly loved him very much
to... To have made these? Yes. Yeah.
How has it sort of come
into your possession?
So, growing up, we had a big
inglenook fireplace
and there was a mantelpiece
and they sat up there all my life,
up until about a year ago.
Mum just gave them to me because she
knew how much I loved them.
And then the timeframe
from receiving them to the damage,
how...? Not long. Really?
Yes, I only had them for about
a month.
So that was terrible.
Do you have any photos
as a reference?
Unfortunately, I don't.
So there is some sort of artistic
license there for me to... Yes.
..do something. OK.
OK, OK. Well, I like a challenge.
There's a lot of challenge here,
but I also love carving,
so it could be a bit
of a treat for me.
I'll do my very best.
I have complete faith in you.
Thank you very much for coming down
and I will let you know when you can
come back and pick them up.
Dolly would just like to say
goodbye.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Little Joe and his wife
are so special to me,
because they are the only thing
that I have of my grandfather,
and the story behind them.
I love Joe and his wife -
what they stand for, as well
as what they look like.
Well, I'm just coming up with a plan
of action for Joe's wife's head.
Most of it's been chewed off.
I have, however, been left
with a tiny bit of chin here.
That gives me an indication
into how much of the face is missing
and the dimensions of the face.
I'm going to get some superglue
in there. That will then bind
everything back together
and give me a nice, solid
foundation.
Stick on a new piece of wood,
and then I can start carving
back in the detail.
I'm going to start off by sketching
out her face.
I almost feel like an archaeologist,
where they'll get a skull,
then they start sort of working out
the muscle tissue on the top,
then the skin and, finally, what
the person would have looked like.
So slowly piecing it together
and hopefully we'll end up
with what Joe's wife
would have originally looked like.
So even though I'm not actually
doing any work on Joe, I think
he can act as a really good
reference for the facial features.
I think I want to keep him
there because he might be able
to offer some moral support
for his wife.
Also busy giving a much needed
face-lift,
Amanda and Julie attend
to Midge the monkey.
I'm really pleased with how Midge's
face has cleaned up.
And he's got a twinkle back in his
eye again, which is nice.
I'm now doing the PVA coating.
And it's quite thick.
But, in this instance, I want to
keep it thick,
because it actually fills
some of the cracks in this rubber,
which is wonderful.
And I'm hoping that, once it's dry,
it'll have taken years off him.
So I've just got to carry on now
with Midge's head and face, finish
off all the limbs, then go over
it, oh, one more coat
and then he'll
be ready to hand back to Amanda.
Hello. Hi.
He's all done. He's dry. Are you
pleased? Has he come up nicely?
He feels beautiful.
Ooh. Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's lovely.
What a difference.
I'm just making Midge
a new pair of inner arms.
The old ones were really quite
badly damaged.
And we think that most of the wear
and tear has been on his arms.
I think he's been carried by his
arms,
he's been up on Charlie's
shoulders, held by his arms.
So I feel that we just need to make
a stronger internal arm,
so that it will last the test
of time, basically.
So I've cut out this one here.
This is the upper part of the arm.
So I'm just going to sit and
quietly sew away.
And, at the end of it, he'll have
a lovely new pair of arms.
Working with black thread
on a black fabric
that's got black fur attached
and a black-felt backing is one
of the most challenging things
we're ever asked to do, I think.
But I am going to try and improve
the appearance
of the areas that fit
around his face and around his ear
by fixing some felt on the back.
And then, as I turn it over,
you'll see
that I've effectively
closed the hole.
But what I'm going to do is define
that by gently stitching
underneath and turning
over those frayed,
slightly greying, tatty edges.
When it's all done, I'll be able
to cut the hole
back out through the felt
and then he'll look like he's got
very neat little, sort of, edges.
This is getting to the exciting bit
now of this repair on Midge.
I'm about to put
his new arms on.
We were quite surprised when we took
him apart
and he had cotter-pin joints
for his arms,
because the outer body
doesn't have joints.
And I think that's probably
why his arms were broken inside.
So what we've done is we've kind
of put this little hinge piece
in the elbow
and then we've reinforced it.
So hopefully, now, there's enough
there to give him movement,
but still be strong.
So the pin that I've put inside
there goes through the body.
So we pop the disc on like that.
So, as I turn him over, we can see
now we've got this nice movement
here in his shoulder and also
in his elbow,
where we've hinged it here.
So he should have these nice sort
of chimp-like arms that kind
of move around freely.
I'm going to get on now and do the
other arm
and then he'll be ready to be put
back inside his furry body.
Hours of solvents, fire and brute
strength
eventually got the workman's vice
apart.
Now all Dom has to do is put
it all back together again.
This is a really nice point
of the restoration. This sliding bed
I've had milled, all these threads
are cleaning up really nicely.
I've got awesome new copper jaws,
which are perfect for gripping items
and not damaging them.
Now it's just a case of basically
assembling all of these pieces
to start putting
this vice back together.
Fingers crossed, that should be...
Yeah, there we go, that's
working just perfectly.
One finger - just slides all the
way in.
I tell you what, from what we
started with -
that seized-up, old
rusty vice -
and the work we've gone
through to get it working again,
I really am quite pleased with this.
After being left outside for over 30
years,
this 90-year-old workman's vice
arrived at the barn
totally immobile and unusable.
It was a far cry from when Daniel's
great-grandfather used it,
and too broken to pass
on to his son.
There's this lineage. There's this
kind of a connection
between the generations and the
cycle of people using the vice.
I don't want it to stop with me.
I want to continue that.
So it's really important and,
if Dom's got it fixed, that would be
great.
How's it going? Are you OK?
Yeah, I'm good, thanks.
First things first, where's the
car? Yeah.
I need the vice to fix the car.
No problem.
How are you feeling?
I'm feeling good. Yeah, excited.
OK. Yeah. I can't wait to show you.
I don't want to kind of get myself,
you know, my hopes up too high.
Go on. You ready? Go on, then, go
on, then.
Oh, yes!
Oh, that's nice, that is.
Do I get to, er, turn the wheel?
Go for it.
Give it a go! Is that all right? I
just want to see the action on it.
That is so smooth. Oh, thank you
very much.
Thank you very much.
This is really nice, this is. How
did you get it...?
How did you un-seize it? It was
probably one of
the most anxious times I've had
here, trying to get that thing...
It was really, really stuck.
I can't tell you.
He's proper inspecting your
work, isn't he? I am!
Don't worry, it's clean in there!
I want to see how you did it.
How does it make you feel?
I feel connected.
You know. There's not much
I've got to remind me of
my great-grandad. I've got very few
memories of my grandad,
because he died when I was so young.
Sure. So, yeah,
having that sort of physical,
you know, connection.
Yeah, this is good. Thank you.
It's lovely to hear
that it's going to be used again.
It really makes me happy
and it makes it worthwhile, doesn't
it? Yeah, it does definitely.
Yeah. Take it away. It's all yours.
It's yours.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
See you later. You take care.
That's a nice smile. He looks
happy. He's happy.
The work that Dom and Jay have put
in has meant that
a fourth generation can now use
the vice -
and then a fifth. And, you never
know, maybe a sixth.
I mean, the fact that that can
happen,
it's hard for me
to describe in words.
It's...
It's like being able to touch
something that, in the past,
has been untouchable. That's the
best way I can describe it.
Wood restorer Will is preparing
to put his own trusty vice
to good use - about to carry out
surgery
on the Swedish wooden effigy...
Wrap her up in a little blanket.
..that was destroyed by
a mischievous puppy.
This piece of wood will end
up being Joe's wife's new face.
The idea is to cut out
the really badly damaged bit here,
just on the top.
Give myself two nice, really flat,
clean edges.
Glue on the new block and then I can
carve all that detail back in.
Have to be really careful not to
cut away too much.
It's a bit like brain surgery.
Lovely. So there we are.
There goes the damaged wood.
Let's see if this block fits.
Well, that's pretty much
a decent fit there.
I can glue it into place and I can
start carving back in that detail.
Now that the glue has dried,
I've got my drawing
for reference, I've got Joe
for support
and it's time to start carving.
So I'm just trying to get the rough
shape of the top and the side
of the head.
Once I start getting
that sort of nice form in there,
at the end, I can start
putting in that finer detail.
One of the good things about this is
that the style that Joe
and his wife have been carved in
can look quite rough and rugged.
But each one of those grooves and
marks come together
to give Joe that sort
of character in his face.
You might think it's quite easy
to replicate, but it's actually
proving to be quite tricky
slowly peeling away these layers of
wood
and hopefully I'll be able
to mimic the same style.
There's something that I love about
carving,
you can really get lost in it.
The only problem with that is, um,
you can end up carving away too much
wood
and then Joe's wife will end up
looking like a toothpick.
So I really need to make
sure I'm paying attention.
I'm going to keep on chipping
away now
until her face starts to
reveal itself to me.
Across the workshop, work on Midge
the monkey continues.
Having stuffed
the new cotton inner body
and redressed him
in his monkey suit...
He's going to be his little furry
self again.
..it's on to the finishing touches.
When Midge first arrived,
it took Amanda ages to gently pick
away the glue that was holding
his furry body to the rubber pieces.
And, now,
putting the glue back again.
Wow, it does look smart now.
Well done.
Hello! Hiya. Look at that face.
You've done a brilliant job
on this one. When Charlie comes back
and he wants to pick up Midge, we
want to get him to wave a bit.
That would be cool.
That would be really good.
Is he all right to sit up by
himself? Or does he need something
to prop him up?
If he starts doing this,
you know, I think, we're quite
likely to...him to fall over.
Make a cushion or something for him
to sit on, could you?
How about a bean bag?
Oh, I do like the sound of that.
I'm going to put even more work on
you. Oh, gosh!
What about a banana? Expert
banana maker.
You've already thought of it?!
Yes.
Out of the finest banana felt.
Well, I expect nothing less.
So I'll leave you to it. OK, Jay.
Midge brought happiness not
only to his owner, Charlie,
but to the many customers he greeted
at Barnsley Market.
Quick. I've got my tension right.
Right, keep hold of it there.
Yeah, I've got it.
Now Charlie is back at the barn,
looking forward to being reunited
with his cheeky chimp once again.
Midge means a lot.
He's my history, he's my life.
He was in a sad state
and it was upsetting.
And I hope now, you know,
the new Midge is going to be alive
and with us for a long, long time.
Hello.
Hey, how are you?
Welcome back. How are you?
I'm good, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Are you looking forward to this?
Oh, yeah, dying to see him,
yeah. How do you feel?
Hello, Midge. Yeah, looking forward
to the unveiling, yeah.
Are you ready? I'm ready!
THEY LAUGH
Come on, Midge!
Ahhh!
Midge!
And his hands!
Is this how he used to wave
at the children on the market stall?
Exactly how he... Really?
..waved at the children, yes.
I can picture now the mums and the
kids... Yeah. ..looking at Midge
and the kids going...
And that's how I feel! Aww!
It's great!
You think it's time for a cuddle?
Oh, definitely.
I'll release him for you.
Oh! Come on, Midge.
There you go. He's all yours.
He's all mine. Ey-up, Midge!
HE CHUCKLES
Wow, he feels, feels...
You've fed him! Oh, yeah. Yeah!
Aww!
That's how I remember his face.
Really? All shiny and...
Oh, fantastic. Yeah.
He has a sparkle in his eye,
in't there? Yeah, definitely.
It's come up lovely, yeah.
I love the way you're touching him -
it's so sweet!
It's obviously... You know
he means a lot to me, don't you?
Yeah, you can tell. You really can.
I wish Dad could see him
waving again.
Yeah. Yeah. That would've been
fantastic, that, walking in, yeah.
Great memories.
He'd love it.
Yeah.
Make your dad proud, yeah? Yeah.
Oh, that's good.
Thank you. No, you're just
so, so welcome.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
But a gentle retirement for him now.
No more work. No more waving, no.
You're staying at home. Yes.
Don't think he'll mind! No, no,
he's definitely staying at home.
Good, good.
It's been such fun, hasn't it?
Absolutely, yeah.
We've loved working on him.
Appreciate it. So, take him home and
enjoy him. Thanks for everything.
Thank you. Bye, Midge! Bye!
Say bye-bye, Midge!
Goodbye. Bye.
Couldn't believe it when he was
waving to me.
Yeah, it took my breath away.
They brought the life back to him,
you know? He looks great.
Mum and Dad'd be so pleased
now he's back with us
and it's a great memory for me.
And hopefully I can pass
these stories on to,
you know, my kids and their kids.
And Midge'll be with us
in the family for, well, forever.
Will has been painstakingly
carving the facial features
of the little wooden figurine
crafted in the 1950s by a Swedish
woodsman to honour his boss.
That's all the carving done.
It's been quite tempting
to make her face very smooth,
as if I was carving a normal face.
But she has a special face
and it's quite rugged
looking, quite angular.
I just hope that Joe
recognises his wife.
All I need to do now is copy some
of the colours from the head scarf
and the colour that is remaining
on the original chin,
blend it in with everything else
then hopefully she should look
as if she was never damaged
in the beginning.
I'm just trying to brush that
colour back on in really thin coats.
She's definitely getting that colour
back in her skin.
Definitely looking
a lot healthier.
I'm getting some of that finer
detail in the eyes and the red
on the lips, which is why
she's really coming back to life.
Eager to see what Will's managed
to conjure up
with his carving tools,
owner Paula has returned to collect
her grandfather's keepsake,
accompanied by naughty
nibbler Dolly.
I'm obviously a bit nervous,
but I'm so excited because I love
Joe and his wife and they mean
so much more to me now
because of the story they tell.
And then obviously this adds
to their story.
So, no, I'm very excited.
Hi, there. Hi, Will.
Lovely to see you again.
Lovely to see you, too.
You must be Paula. I am.
And this is Dolly? It is.
Heard a lot about her.
You must be really excited to see
Joe's wife. I'm so excited.
Well, Joe has been ever supportive
and standing
by her side throughout
the process. Good.
And he's already had a sneak peek
and he's very happy with the work.
Oh, thank God for that!
THEY LAUGH
So, I hope, I hope, I've got
her looking back as she once did.
You ready to see? I'm ready.
Yeah? Yes.
HE CHUCKLES
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God.
Can I pick her up?
Yeah. That's unbelievable.
She looks better than
she did before!
THEY LAUGH
Wow! She's got more of a face,
more character.
I think she's fantastic.
Thank you, Will.
I love her. And Joe's now got his
wife back. Mm.
So these are the only objects
you've got from your grandfather?
I have, yes. So this is all I have
from my grandfather. OK.
And they will be loved and
cherished. And not chewed.
And not chewed, no, ever again!
OK!
Thank you so much... No, thank you.
..for bringing Joe
and his wife down.
She was a pleasure to work on.
Let's hope that we don't see her
back in the barn again!
No, definitely not, eh, Dolly?
No, no, no. Yeah.
Thank you. There you go.
Lovely.
You take care, now.
And you, bye-bye.
Bye, Dolly! Bye-bye.
I think it's absolutely incredible
that he's able to do what he did.
She didn't have a face
when I brought her here
and now she looks better
than she did before.
And when I get home, they'll be put
so we can enjoy them both every day.
So they'll be able to be seen.
They'll stay with us forever.
Join us next time,
where patience and persistence...
BITS CLATTER
..achieve incredible results...
SHE GASPS
Oh, wow!
..in The Repair Shop.
where precious but faded
treasures... This is bad.
I don't think I've ever seen a chair
quite so broken as this.
..are restored
to their former glory.
That's lovely. Isn't it?
That's lovely, isn't it?
Furniture restorer Jay Blades...
Bringing history back to life
is what makes The Repair Shop
so special.
..and a dream team of expert
craftspeople...
Amazing! It's a bit like brain
surgery.
Go on! ..come together to work
their magic.
Yahoo! When you look at something
that looks so hopeless, like this,
it makes me even more determined
to get it back.
That's teamwork.
Employing heritage craft skills
passed down the generations.
It is a privilege to be able to do
something for somebody that means
so much to them.
Preserving irreplaceable heirlooms.
To bring those pieces back to life
is just the most wonderful thing
and I'd like to do it forever.
The team will restore the items...
Whoa!
..the memories... I'm so happy to
see it.
..and unlock the stories that they
hold.
It's made it all worthwhile.
In The Repair Shop today...
Come, Midge, give us your hand.
There's something else
going on here, I think.
..monkey business with Julie
and Amanda.
This is much more serious.
We're going to have to be
much more invasive than we
intended to be.
While Will transforms a rough
block of wood...
I've got bits of a head.
I've got a chin there. ..into
a finely carved figurine.
I'm going to keep on chipping away
now
until her face starts to reveal
itself to me.
First, in an unusual twist
of events,
Daniel McDonald is bringing tools
TO the repair shop.
He's hoping Dominic Chinea
will have the mettle to renovate
this 90-year-old workman's vice.
Wow.
Hello. Hello. How are you doing?
Are you all right? Yeah, good.
Can I put this down? Yeah, yeah!
Thank you. That must weigh a ton!
It is a little bit heavy.
I'm Jay. Nice to meet you.
And you are? Daniel.
Daniel. Daniel, hi. I'm Dom.
Hi, Dom. Nice to see you.
I want to know why you've got a
vice. Why I've got a vice.
Well, it's not my vice originally.
Whose is it? It started off with my
great-grandad.
OK. So my great-grandad and my
grandad, they were both engineers.
Right. My great-grandad, I know he
used to work for Rolls-Royce.
So he passed it on to my grandad.
Grandad gave it to my dad. OK.
Now, my dad, he was a car mechanic.
So I remember him using this...
Right. ..in the back garden.
It was on the wall.
So I remember him using it
until I was about, say,
ten years old, something like that.
I'm 42 now.
Right. Right. So it sort of sat
at the top of the garden
about 30-odd years.
What...? Outside. Outside?
Just outside.
Oh, no! Outside? Yeah. Yeah.
And then, last year, I remembered
him using this vice
and I was struggling -
I've got an old XR3i.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
No! What, Ford?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You've got an XR3i Ford?
Yeah. At home.
Yeah. And you brought us a vice?
I'm afraid so. But I need the vice
to be able to fix the car!
Are you a mechanic, then? No, I'm
not a mechanic. Are you not?
I'm a university lecturer. What?
So you're not a mechanic?
No. No engineering at all?
None whatsoever.
So it doesn't actually look too bad.
Er... This is... Oh, OK, this is...
This is the bit that's seized,
has it? That won't move.
So that should be sliding in and out
to clamp things,
but... No, it's not budging.
LAUGHTER
You're laughing. You know how
stuck that is, don't you?
I spent a week trying to free it
and I couldn't.
Wow. I used penetrating
oil, um...for three days.
I used cola for three days,
just dousing it and soaking it.
Nothing. He knows. He knows what
he's doing.
Wow. He's like, "It's your problem
now." You deal with it!
At least this still spins, does it,
or...? This is loose? Er...
No, OK.
Oh, I see.
That should not happen. No, it
shouldn't.
It shouldn't happen. So that should
screw in.
Yeah. Which is broken.
That's broken, as well.
Great.
OK.
Wow. This is not going to be an easy
one.
Yeah. It's not going to be easy.
Yeah.
OK. Daniel, I can't wait to see
what he does with this one.
So thank you.
Pleasure meeting you.
All I can say is good luck
and thank you very much.
Take care. See you soon.
You take care. All right. Bye-bye.
Wow. It's seized, isn't it?
This is bad.
Yeah!
The vice has got this
connection between the generations.
It would be really nice
if I was able to use it and work
with it, the same as my
great-grandad and my grandad did.
And then I could pass it on, maybe,
to my son.
Plan A. I'm going to try and soak
the vice in a solution of acetone
and automatic gearbox fluid,
which sounds bizarre but,
fingers crossed, it's going to work
its way in to that seized-up area
and hopefully
free up that mechanism.
I'm going to leave that to sit
in there and soak for as long
as I possibly can.
And, fingers crossed, this is
going to work.
Next, another visitor -
and a friend.
Charles Longley, from Doncaster,
has brought a cheeky childhood chum
for the attention of toy restorers
Julie Tatchell
and Amanda Middleditch.
BOTH: Oh!
LAUGHTER
Hello.
Oh, look!
Oh, who is this?
This is Midge. Hello, Midge.
In his onesie.
Tell me about Midge.
Well, Midge has had two lives.
His first life was he was bought
for me in the early '60s. OK.
He was like my teddy bear.
Everywhere I went,
he was on my shoulders -
day trips, holidays.
And then, when he was at home,
he lived at the bottom
of my bunk bed. Best friend,
you know. Best friend.
So what happened that changed
this that he had a second life?
Midge started his second life,
which was a working monkey on Mum
and Dad's market stall
at Barnsley Market. A monkey with a
job? He got a job!
Dad's store was called
Aladdin's Cave. OK.
And he sold everything.
Dad had got
him attached to the frame.
And then there was some
kind of pulley system
going on where there was a nylon
string to his arm.
So Midge would wave to the kids.
The kids just couldn't believe it,
because they couldn't see the nylon.
Yeah. And thought, "This
monkey's waving at me," you know.
And every time I went, Midge had
more and more props attached to him.
He had watched straps on.
Clip-on earrings!
He would have something
different on him every week.
Could I take a look at him?
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Take him out of his onesie.
Come on, Midge.
So Midge was made
by a company called
the Dean's Rag Book Company.
Right. And it was a series that
they had called True To Life.
Right. And the way that they managed
to get such a wonderful,
realistic look
was to make the extremities
out of natural rubber.
And that's why he has this
deterioration of the rubber.
Right. Midge is just showing the
signs of a good, full,
busy working life. Yeah.
Do you think you could fill him
out a bit now,
get a good meal? Absolutely.
And his fur will come up lovely.
Will it? Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
He's going to look a few years
younger when you see him again.
Is he? Yeah. Aren't you?
So what plans have you got for
Midge, if we can get him looking
a bit more sprightly.
I've got two kids. You know,
hopefully, he'll belong to them one
day and their children.
So thank you so much for bringing
Midge and trusting us with him.
I know he's in good hands.
We'll let you know when he's ready.
Thanks a lot. All right.
Thank you. Bye, Midge.
Bye, Charlie. Bye!
Midge has been in our family now
for 55, 60 years, so
he's a big part of my family. He's
a great memory
and a great memory of Mum and Dad.
So I need Midge to go on.
Look at that face. I know!
He's adorable. He's got so much
character, hasn't he? Yeah.
His little hands. We're not going to
be able to change that,
unfortunately. He's always
going to have this sort of twisted
look to his hand. But, like you say,
it's part of his age.
Well, we could get all the rubber
features cleaned. Yeah.
And then go with the
conservation-grade coating. Yeah.
At least, that way, we'll stop
them getting worse.
Yeah, absolutely. I don't think I
should do it while
he's still
attached to all his fur.
You want him all
taken apart?
All the hands and feet
and head and ears?
Why don't we see if we can at least
peel back the fur. Edges.
I'll go and see if I can get
some of that glue. OK.
We'll be all right, won't we, mate?
Come on, Midge, give us your hand.
There's something else
going on here, I think.
OK.
So what I've discovered
here is, inside Midge's furry body
is a cotton body.
So it's almost like they made
a body and then dressed
it in a furry onesie.
It's the only way I can describe
it.
But the body is made or
engineered
in such a way that it enabled
the legs and everything
to move in a monkey-type way.
And the cotton body is in a bad
way...
..which means that this is
much more serious.
We're going to have to replace
all of this cotton inner body.
So, yeah, it's not good for Midge,
really, because it means
that we're going to have to be much
more invasive
than we intended to be.
But, anyway, I've got one off.
I'll keep going.
In the outdoor workshop, Dom's plan
of soaking the immoveable vice
has been a wash-out.
This vice is still so seized.
I mean, I'm hitting it quite hard
with this hammer - as hard as I
dare, at the moment,
and it is not
showing any signs of budging.
Dom! Oh, sorry, Jay. Are you
all right? What are you doing?
Being perfectly honest, I'm
not having a great time.
I can really feel Daniel's pain
with trying to get this vice
apart. And I'm kind of running
out of options. This is really my
last resort now.
My plan of attack, really, is
to heat this up.
By heating it up, when it gets up to
maybe 400 degrees,
the metal will
expand ever so slightly.
And that's what we need to happen
to just try and break that bond.
I've got hydraulic jaws that can put
out half a tonne of pressure.
We're going to put in there, pushing
outwards, as well. Right.
And then your power of your right
arm to whack the back of that.
And I'm terrified, if I'm honest
with you.
There's a real big risk here
that we could crack it.
All right. Let's give it a go.
See what happens.
That must be hot enough.
Look at it.
Yes, let's give it a go.
OK, I'm going to put
this in there. You pump it for us.
Watch your hands.
Are we in?
Right, OK. Go steady now.
Hydraulic fluid is pumped in under
high pressure... Go on.
..pushing the jaws apart
in an effort to open
the locked-up vice.
Just think of Daniel's grandad
whilst you're doing that!
My heart is like... I know! OK.
Got to get this open.
So I've got my line here -
ambitiously hoping that a couple of
whacks there,
that's going to creep forwards.
No.
No. Hold on. Come on. I'm going
to hit it now.
Come on, Jay, hit it.
No. That wasn't even slightly
going, was it?
All right. Fire.
OK.
I am feeling super-nervous.
Come on, Jay!
Cor.
I really thought that would go.
I mean... Next time. Third time
lucky.
Going to get it?
I've got a really good feeling about
this one, Dom. Here we go.
That's good.
OK? Good. Let's get some good
pressure in there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's moving.
Yes. See how easy it's going now?
Go on!
It's going, it's going!
It's out! Couldn't have done that
without you. That was a definite
team effort. Daniel's got to know
how hard we worked on that one.
Worth it, though.
I'm so chuffed. Well done, man.
Done now. Well done.
The next problem is the jaws
on the vice.
One is missing completely.
The other one is intact.
It's there, but it's very,
very rusty.
So the jaws of a vice are textured
pieces of metal that sit
on each face. So as you clamp the
part in the vice,
they've got a little bit of grip so
they can actually grip hold
of what you're trying to clamp.
They were removable things -
they're designed to unscrew
and be replaced.
Unfortunately, these haven't
been removed in a very long time.
The only real option I've got
is to cut it off.
Hopefully, by cutting it
into pieces, I'll be able to remove
the jaw. I just need to be really,
really careful because I'm going
to be cutting right up
to the actual casting of the vice.
And I don't dare nick that
with the angle grinder.
Oh, brilliant.
OK, here's the first piece
out. I've got to now keep
going over the whole of this jaw,
remove it all in sections.
With the old, rusty gripping jaws
removed, Dom can turn his attention
to the rest of the mechanism.
This is the sort of internal
main screw block
that, when you're turning
on that handle, locking things up
in the vice, this is essentially
the nut that that screws into.
So it's absolutely a key
part to the whole vice working.
It's what holds everything together.
And, of course,
it's snapped in half.
I've taken off the corner of each
piece
to make like a V-shaped kind
of valley, so I can fill that valley
back up with weld and it'll just
give me
a much stronger weld, hopefully.
Actually, that looks pretty good.
I mean, it's not the prettiest weld
I've ever done,
but strength
is the most important thing here.
Just need to knock that back
and dress it up with the grinder,
then it's almost ready.
Dom's assignment may be nearing
completion,
but new items
are always arriving.
Paula Becvar, from Sussex, is hoping
wood whizz Will Kirk can restore
a family heirloom that met a grisly
end at the hands - or the teeth -
of this playful pooch.
Hi there, I'm Will.
Hi, Will, I'm Paula.
Who's this? This is Dolly.
Ah. Dolly's the culprit.
Hello, you. Why we're here.
Right, what's in the bag?
Two wooden figurines that were
carved for my grandfather
by a man called Joe, in 1950.
Right.
And this is his wife.
Oh, that's been chewed off?!
Yes.
Yes. By Dolly.
By Dolly. Yes.
How did the damage occur, then?
I went out.
I didn't realise that I had knocked
Joe's wife off the side.
And when I came in... Dolly was only
four months at the time.
She thought it was one of her toys
and had chewed her head off.
So, um, yes. Wow.
She is lovely. I can't really blame
her too much.
She didn't know. Very sweet, aren't
you?
So where are these from and how
have they come into your possession?
My grandfather worked in the
wood-pulp industry and in the '40s
he moved to Sweden and became
managing director
of a Swedish company over there.
My grandfather was in charge
of thousands of acres of woodlands,
of replanting the trees
and chopping them down
and maintaining the forests.
The wood-pulp industry was extremely
important for Sweden,
and my grandfather, being
the director, was then recognised
for his contribution by
being knighted by the King.
Your grandfather was knighted by the
King of Sweden? That's amazing.
It is amazing. And, subsequently,
they became good friends
and the King would come over
and whenever he was in England,
they'd go out for dinner.
What's your grandfather's name?
Duncan Andrew. Duncan Andrew.
So did you ever get to meet
your grandfather?
I didn't, unfortunately,
and I wish I had.
He died a year before I was born,
but my mother tells me he lived life
to the full.
My mum used to go and visit him
when he was out there and my mother
was in the forest one day in Sweden,
holding my grandfather's hand,
with one of the men that worked
for him, called Joe.
And Joe reached into his pocket and
got out Joe and said, "I've carved
"this for you out of the trees
that I look after."
My grandfather was the most
amazing man.
Not only was he thought of greatly
by the people of Sweden, but also
the people that worked for him
clearly loved him very much
to... To have made these? Yes. Yeah.
How has it sort of come
into your possession?
So, growing up, we had a big
inglenook fireplace
and there was a mantelpiece
and they sat up there all my life,
up until about a year ago.
Mum just gave them to me because she
knew how much I loved them.
And then the timeframe
from receiving them to the damage,
how...? Not long. Really?
Yes, I only had them for about
a month.
So that was terrible.
Do you have any photos
as a reference?
Unfortunately, I don't.
So there is some sort of artistic
license there for me to... Yes.
..do something. OK.
OK, OK. Well, I like a challenge.
There's a lot of challenge here,
but I also love carving,
so it could be a bit
of a treat for me.
I'll do my very best.
I have complete faith in you.
Thank you very much for coming down
and I will let you know when you can
come back and pick them up.
Dolly would just like to say
goodbye.
Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Little Joe and his wife
are so special to me,
because they are the only thing
that I have of my grandfather,
and the story behind them.
I love Joe and his wife -
what they stand for, as well
as what they look like.
Well, I'm just coming up with a plan
of action for Joe's wife's head.
Most of it's been chewed off.
I have, however, been left
with a tiny bit of chin here.
That gives me an indication
into how much of the face is missing
and the dimensions of the face.
I'm going to get some superglue
in there. That will then bind
everything back together
and give me a nice, solid
foundation.
Stick on a new piece of wood,
and then I can start carving
back in the detail.
I'm going to start off by sketching
out her face.
I almost feel like an archaeologist,
where they'll get a skull,
then they start sort of working out
the muscle tissue on the top,
then the skin and, finally, what
the person would have looked like.
So slowly piecing it together
and hopefully we'll end up
with what Joe's wife
would have originally looked like.
So even though I'm not actually
doing any work on Joe, I think
he can act as a really good
reference for the facial features.
I think I want to keep him
there because he might be able
to offer some moral support
for his wife.
Also busy giving a much needed
face-lift,
Amanda and Julie attend
to Midge the monkey.
I'm really pleased with how Midge's
face has cleaned up.
And he's got a twinkle back in his
eye again, which is nice.
I'm now doing the PVA coating.
And it's quite thick.
But, in this instance, I want to
keep it thick,
because it actually fills
some of the cracks in this rubber,
which is wonderful.
And I'm hoping that, once it's dry,
it'll have taken years off him.
So I've just got to carry on now
with Midge's head and face, finish
off all the limbs, then go over
it, oh, one more coat
and then he'll
be ready to hand back to Amanda.
Hello. Hi.
He's all done. He's dry. Are you
pleased? Has he come up nicely?
He feels beautiful.
Ooh. Oh, yeah.
Oh, that's lovely.
What a difference.
I'm just making Midge
a new pair of inner arms.
The old ones were really quite
badly damaged.
And we think that most of the wear
and tear has been on his arms.
I think he's been carried by his
arms,
he's been up on Charlie's
shoulders, held by his arms.
So I feel that we just need to make
a stronger internal arm,
so that it will last the test
of time, basically.
So I've cut out this one here.
This is the upper part of the arm.
So I'm just going to sit and
quietly sew away.
And, at the end of it, he'll have
a lovely new pair of arms.
Working with black thread
on a black fabric
that's got black fur attached
and a black-felt backing is one
of the most challenging things
we're ever asked to do, I think.
But I am going to try and improve
the appearance
of the areas that fit
around his face and around his ear
by fixing some felt on the back.
And then, as I turn it over,
you'll see
that I've effectively
closed the hole.
But what I'm going to do is define
that by gently stitching
underneath and turning
over those frayed,
slightly greying, tatty edges.
When it's all done, I'll be able
to cut the hole
back out through the felt
and then he'll look like he's got
very neat little, sort of, edges.
This is getting to the exciting bit
now of this repair on Midge.
I'm about to put
his new arms on.
We were quite surprised when we took
him apart
and he had cotter-pin joints
for his arms,
because the outer body
doesn't have joints.
And I think that's probably
why his arms were broken inside.
So what we've done is we've kind
of put this little hinge piece
in the elbow
and then we've reinforced it.
So hopefully, now, there's enough
there to give him movement,
but still be strong.
So the pin that I've put inside
there goes through the body.
So we pop the disc on like that.
So, as I turn him over, we can see
now we've got this nice movement
here in his shoulder and also
in his elbow,
where we've hinged it here.
So he should have these nice sort
of chimp-like arms that kind
of move around freely.
I'm going to get on now and do the
other arm
and then he'll be ready to be put
back inside his furry body.
Hours of solvents, fire and brute
strength
eventually got the workman's vice
apart.
Now all Dom has to do is put
it all back together again.
This is a really nice point
of the restoration. This sliding bed
I've had milled, all these threads
are cleaning up really nicely.
I've got awesome new copper jaws,
which are perfect for gripping items
and not damaging them.
Now it's just a case of basically
assembling all of these pieces
to start putting
this vice back together.
Fingers crossed, that should be...
Yeah, there we go, that's
working just perfectly.
One finger - just slides all the
way in.
I tell you what, from what we
started with -
that seized-up, old
rusty vice -
and the work we've gone
through to get it working again,
I really am quite pleased with this.
After being left outside for over 30
years,
this 90-year-old workman's vice
arrived at the barn
totally immobile and unusable.
It was a far cry from when Daniel's
great-grandfather used it,
and too broken to pass
on to his son.
There's this lineage. There's this
kind of a connection
between the generations and the
cycle of people using the vice.
I don't want it to stop with me.
I want to continue that.
So it's really important and,
if Dom's got it fixed, that would be
great.
How's it going? Are you OK?
Yeah, I'm good, thanks.
First things first, where's the
car? Yeah.
I need the vice to fix the car.
No problem.
How are you feeling?
I'm feeling good. Yeah, excited.
OK. Yeah. I can't wait to show you.
I don't want to kind of get myself,
you know, my hopes up too high.
Go on. You ready? Go on, then, go
on, then.
Oh, yes!
Oh, that's nice, that is.
Do I get to, er, turn the wheel?
Go for it.
Give it a go! Is that all right? I
just want to see the action on it.
That is so smooth. Oh, thank you
very much.
Thank you very much.
This is really nice, this is. How
did you get it...?
How did you un-seize it? It was
probably one of
the most anxious times I've had
here, trying to get that thing...
It was really, really stuck.
I can't tell you.
He's proper inspecting your
work, isn't he? I am!
Don't worry, it's clean in there!
I want to see how you did it.
How does it make you feel?
I feel connected.
You know. There's not much
I've got to remind me of
my great-grandad. I've got very few
memories of my grandad,
because he died when I was so young.
Sure. So, yeah,
having that sort of physical,
you know, connection.
Yeah, this is good. Thank you.
It's lovely to hear
that it's going to be used again.
It really makes me happy
and it makes it worthwhile, doesn't
it? Yeah, it does definitely.
Yeah. Take it away. It's all yours.
It's yours.
Gentlemen, thank you very much.
See you later. You take care.
That's a nice smile. He looks
happy. He's happy.
The work that Dom and Jay have put
in has meant that
a fourth generation can now use
the vice -
and then a fifth. And, you never
know, maybe a sixth.
I mean, the fact that that can
happen,
it's hard for me
to describe in words.
It's...
It's like being able to touch
something that, in the past,
has been untouchable. That's the
best way I can describe it.
Wood restorer Will is preparing
to put his own trusty vice
to good use - about to carry out
surgery
on the Swedish wooden effigy...
Wrap her up in a little blanket.
..that was destroyed by
a mischievous puppy.
This piece of wood will end
up being Joe's wife's new face.
The idea is to cut out
the really badly damaged bit here,
just on the top.
Give myself two nice, really flat,
clean edges.
Glue on the new block and then I can
carve all that detail back in.
Have to be really careful not to
cut away too much.
It's a bit like brain surgery.
Lovely. So there we are.
There goes the damaged wood.
Let's see if this block fits.
Well, that's pretty much
a decent fit there.
I can glue it into place and I can
start carving back in that detail.
Now that the glue has dried,
I've got my drawing
for reference, I've got Joe
for support
and it's time to start carving.
So I'm just trying to get the rough
shape of the top and the side
of the head.
Once I start getting
that sort of nice form in there,
at the end, I can start
putting in that finer detail.
One of the good things about this is
that the style that Joe
and his wife have been carved in
can look quite rough and rugged.
But each one of those grooves and
marks come together
to give Joe that sort
of character in his face.
You might think it's quite easy
to replicate, but it's actually
proving to be quite tricky
slowly peeling away these layers of
wood
and hopefully I'll be able
to mimic the same style.
There's something that I love about
carving,
you can really get lost in it.
The only problem with that is, um,
you can end up carving away too much
wood
and then Joe's wife will end up
looking like a toothpick.
So I really need to make
sure I'm paying attention.
I'm going to keep on chipping
away now
until her face starts to
reveal itself to me.
Across the workshop, work on Midge
the monkey continues.
Having stuffed
the new cotton inner body
and redressed him
in his monkey suit...
He's going to be his little furry
self again.
..it's on to the finishing touches.
When Midge first arrived,
it took Amanda ages to gently pick
away the glue that was holding
his furry body to the rubber pieces.
And, now,
putting the glue back again.
Wow, it does look smart now.
Well done.
Hello! Hiya. Look at that face.
You've done a brilliant job
on this one. When Charlie comes back
and he wants to pick up Midge, we
want to get him to wave a bit.
That would be cool.
That would be really good.
Is he all right to sit up by
himself? Or does he need something
to prop him up?
If he starts doing this,
you know, I think, we're quite
likely to...him to fall over.
Make a cushion or something for him
to sit on, could you?
How about a bean bag?
Oh, I do like the sound of that.
I'm going to put even more work on
you. Oh, gosh!
What about a banana? Expert
banana maker.
You've already thought of it?!
Yes.
Out of the finest banana felt.
Well, I expect nothing less.
So I'll leave you to it. OK, Jay.
Midge brought happiness not
only to his owner, Charlie,
but to the many customers he greeted
at Barnsley Market.
Quick. I've got my tension right.
Right, keep hold of it there.
Yeah, I've got it.
Now Charlie is back at the barn,
looking forward to being reunited
with his cheeky chimp once again.
Midge means a lot.
He's my history, he's my life.
He was in a sad state
and it was upsetting.
And I hope now, you know,
the new Midge is going to be alive
and with us for a long, long time.
Hello.
Hey, how are you?
Welcome back. How are you?
I'm good, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Are you looking forward to this?
Oh, yeah, dying to see him,
yeah. How do you feel?
Hello, Midge. Yeah, looking forward
to the unveiling, yeah.
Are you ready? I'm ready!
THEY LAUGH
Come on, Midge!
Ahhh!
Midge!
And his hands!
Is this how he used to wave
at the children on the market stall?
Exactly how he... Really?
..waved at the children, yes.
I can picture now the mums and the
kids... Yeah. ..looking at Midge
and the kids going...
And that's how I feel! Aww!
It's great!
You think it's time for a cuddle?
Oh, definitely.
I'll release him for you.
Oh! Come on, Midge.
There you go. He's all yours.
He's all mine. Ey-up, Midge!
HE CHUCKLES
Wow, he feels, feels...
You've fed him! Oh, yeah. Yeah!
Aww!
That's how I remember his face.
Really? All shiny and...
Oh, fantastic. Yeah.
He has a sparkle in his eye,
in't there? Yeah, definitely.
It's come up lovely, yeah.
I love the way you're touching him -
it's so sweet!
It's obviously... You know
he means a lot to me, don't you?
Yeah, you can tell. You really can.
I wish Dad could see him
waving again.
Yeah. Yeah. That would've been
fantastic, that, walking in, yeah.
Great memories.
He'd love it.
Yeah.
Make your dad proud, yeah? Yeah.
Oh, that's good.
Thank you. No, you're just
so, so welcome.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
But a gentle retirement for him now.
No more work. No more waving, no.
You're staying at home. Yes.
Don't think he'll mind! No, no,
he's definitely staying at home.
Good, good.
It's been such fun, hasn't it?
Absolutely, yeah.
We've loved working on him.
Appreciate it. So, take him home and
enjoy him. Thanks for everything.
Thank you. Bye, Midge! Bye!
Say bye-bye, Midge!
Goodbye. Bye.
Couldn't believe it when he was
waving to me.
Yeah, it took my breath away.
They brought the life back to him,
you know? He looks great.
Mum and Dad'd be so pleased
now he's back with us
and it's a great memory for me.
And hopefully I can pass
these stories on to,
you know, my kids and their kids.
And Midge'll be with us
in the family for, well, forever.
Will has been painstakingly
carving the facial features
of the little wooden figurine
crafted in the 1950s by a Swedish
woodsman to honour his boss.
That's all the carving done.
It's been quite tempting
to make her face very smooth,
as if I was carving a normal face.
But she has a special face
and it's quite rugged
looking, quite angular.
I just hope that Joe
recognises his wife.
All I need to do now is copy some
of the colours from the head scarf
and the colour that is remaining
on the original chin,
blend it in with everything else
then hopefully she should look
as if she was never damaged
in the beginning.
I'm just trying to brush that
colour back on in really thin coats.
She's definitely getting that colour
back in her skin.
Definitely looking
a lot healthier.
I'm getting some of that finer
detail in the eyes and the red
on the lips, which is why
she's really coming back to life.
Eager to see what Will's managed
to conjure up
with his carving tools,
owner Paula has returned to collect
her grandfather's keepsake,
accompanied by naughty
nibbler Dolly.
I'm obviously a bit nervous,
but I'm so excited because I love
Joe and his wife and they mean
so much more to me now
because of the story they tell.
And then obviously this adds
to their story.
So, no, I'm very excited.
Hi, there. Hi, Will.
Lovely to see you again.
Lovely to see you, too.
You must be Paula. I am.
And this is Dolly? It is.
Heard a lot about her.
You must be really excited to see
Joe's wife. I'm so excited.
Well, Joe has been ever supportive
and standing
by her side throughout
the process. Good.
And he's already had a sneak peek
and he's very happy with the work.
Oh, thank God for that!
THEY LAUGH
So, I hope, I hope, I've got
her looking back as she once did.
You ready to see? I'm ready.
Yeah? Yes.
HE CHUCKLES
Oh, my God!
Oh, my God.
Can I pick her up?
Yeah. That's unbelievable.
She looks better than
she did before!
THEY LAUGH
Wow! She's got more of a face,
more character.
I think she's fantastic.
Thank you, Will.
I love her. And Joe's now got his
wife back. Mm.
So these are the only objects
you've got from your grandfather?
I have, yes. So this is all I have
from my grandfather. OK.
And they will be loved and
cherished. And not chewed.
And not chewed, no, ever again!
OK!
Thank you so much... No, thank you.
..for bringing Joe
and his wife down.
She was a pleasure to work on.
Let's hope that we don't see her
back in the barn again!
No, definitely not, eh, Dolly?
No, no, no. Yeah.
Thank you. There you go.
Lovely.
You take care, now.
And you, bye-bye.
Bye, Dolly! Bye-bye.
I think it's absolutely incredible
that he's able to do what he did.
She didn't have a face
when I brought her here
and now she looks better
than she did before.
And when I get home, they'll be put
so we can enjoy them both every day.
So they'll be able to be seen.
They'll stay with us forever.
Join us next time,
where patience and persistence...
BITS CLATTER
..achieve incredible results...
SHE GASPS
Oh, wow!
..in The Repair Shop.