The Repair Shop

Before leaving for the UK I had asked Brian if he could take a look at the hinges on a box I use to store some personal memories. Over the years they had become quite loose and fragile, and wouldn’t close properly. I was a bit worried it would become unusable.

Brian though wasn’t happy just looking at the bit I’d asked him to sort out, he looked at the whole box. He decided that two missing areas of marquetry on the top would give him a chance to try something he hadn’t done before.

He’s a big fan of a programme in the UK called ‘The Repair Shop’, and especially the woodworking skills of a chap called Will. He’d seen him fix a table using veneer, and I think he felt it would be a good thing to try, so not one to be scared of getting stuck in, he removed and sanded the top of the box, ready to start replacing the missing pieces. For the first part of the job he cut his own veneer slices, and dropped them into the hole that he had cleaned up.

Next he did the same thing with another part of the design, carefully cutting a small piece of wood to fit. It was all very fiddly.

The last piece to replace was a chipped edge. He cut a piece of veneer from an existing piece of left over wood he had, and glued it into place before shaving it back to fit.

A quick sanding down of everything…

…and a spray varnish, and the job was complete.

It was such a delight to see the care he had put into renovating the box for me, it can now spend many more years looking after my treasured memories.