
The Repair Shop’s Dominic Chinea on the show’s new series

As the well known show returns with an additional series, Rachael Davis chats to the metalwork pro about why he feels this one is the ‘best yet’.
With a diploma in graphic design, a vocation history in established structure, a passion for common car restoration and a common YouTube channel, The Restore Shop’s Dominic Chinea is a jack of numerous trades – and learn of several, much too.
Chinea, greatest known for his master metalwork on the BBC programme, is a self-confessed “car nut” who enjoys to tinker with machinery in his workshop.
He was above the moon when a rusting pedal car was brought into the barn for the very first episode of The Fix Shop’s latest series – a collection he promises is “the most effective nevertheless”.
For individuals unfamiliarw with the established up, The Fix Store sees users of the public carry battered, broken, neglected or forsaken objects, normally with extraordinary sentimental worth, into the Mend Store barn – the Weald and Downland Residing Museum in West Sussex – for the resident industry experts to mend and restore.
The experienced craftspeople include things like foreman and home furniture restorer Jay Blades, clock restorer Steven Fletcher, portray conservator Lucia Scalisi, ceramics specialist Kirsten Ramsay and carpenter Will Kirk, each at the top rated of their match in their respective trades.
Series 10 of The Mend Shop features two of Chinea’s favorite at any time repairs, some heart-warming stories of sentimental price and, of training course, the similar gifted staff of craftwork authorities enthusiasts have occur to know and enjoy.
But what’s it truly like performing in the barn, and what can we expect from the newest season?
You’ve got BEEN ON THE Fix Store Considering the fact that Collection One. WHY DO YOU Really like Performing ON THE PROGRAMME?
I’ve worked in quite a couple workshops above the several years, constructing props, established layout – and honestly I can say there is no other workshop like it that I have at any time been to, any where.
It is a exclusive place in which we get to get the job done facet by aspect with the most talented people all-around. We’re in that barn, and it truly is a pretty, quite inspiring room. Everyone enjoys what they do.
OUT OF ALL THE Things You have Labored ON SO Considerably, WHICH IS YOUR Favourite?
The pedal car in this series is my all-time favourite product. Honestly, that was a aspiration.
I am a bit of a car nut, I do like my classic automobiles, and I imagine that is as near as we might get to truly restoring a vintage car or truck at the barn.
It was for these a deserving loved ones, they had been so around the moon. To see it on the race observe, on the finish line, the two young children dressed up in their boiler suits, the chequered flag – it was just a goosebump moment. A really, genuinely, seriously distinctive factor.
Each individual solitary component was repaired, new, rechromed, repainted – it was just stunning in the end. I’m actually very proud of it.
THAT Second WHEN YOU UNVEIL THE RESTORED Object TO THE Proprietor – What’s THAT LIKE?
It is really terrifying! Ahead of they have seen it, and that blanket’s above it…
We all tread incredibly carefully with the repairs, we attempt to keep people recollections in it. It can be the attention to element, the tiny factors, it really is about trying to keep the integrity.
Each solitary nut and bolt that I just take off, there is a decision: no matter if we hold it, we clean it, replace it, set it back on. There are an awful lot of decisions to make, and that is the pressure of the show.
After you have bought all that accomplished, standing there at the establish desk… you just hope they like it.
WHAT IS IT LIKE Working IN THE BARN WITH These A Gifted Workforce?
I appreciate observing them all.
Chris Shaw could be making an attempt to delaminate a piece of paper, literally peeling a piece of paper in 50 {7e44665ad31c7163a3225b5cdeca12ae8e1ba5a9651d05b2285576263eb8f3ac}, and then Kirsten’s over there gluing back together some ridiculous pot that is smashed into a million parts. It’s very a strange predicament.
We do all consider the do the job household – not the actual physical item, but the conclusions and the thought process. It truly is constantly in your brain, imagining in the evenings: ‘What do I do with this? What about that? Shall I do this? What do you think?’ We bounce strategies off each individual other, which is truly pleasant.
DO YOU Consider We are Transferring Absent FROM THROWAWAY Society AND Wanting Extra TO Repairing?
Certainly. We used to generally say that we’re in a bit of a throwaway lifestyle, but I assume lockdown aided a great deal. People today are a lot extra conscious and aware of hoping not to throw things away, and restoring points. Not anyone is equipped to, but anyone is a whole lot a lot more informed.
We will need that youthful technology coming in, realising that these crafts are nevertheless appropriate. There is nonetheless a need to have for previous crafts in the present day world nowadays – I experience strongly about that. I imply, I wasn’t really fantastic at college, and I would have liked to have long gone on an apprenticeship and carried out something like that.
I’m performing as much as I can with my YouTube channel and what I do individually to test and get as a lot of men and women as attainable encouraged to do these old crafts, continue to keep them alive.
It is lovely being portion of that movement – I feel the demonstrate has completed amazing things.
WHAT DO WE HAVE TO Search Ahead TO IN THE Repair SHOP’S NEW Series?
Every year it gets greater and much better. No matter whether it is really the objects that we are operating on, the people that have introduced them in, the factors why these things suggest so much to these persons, the tales they have obtained hooked up to them.
A couple of the objects that I have labored on are the ideal things that I’ve ever repaired down there, truthfully. Two items: the pedal auto – my all-time favorite item, and then a hammer, which seems like such an obscure issue, but it was one particular of the most enjoyable, attractive items to maintenance, and the story attached to it.
It is really likely to be the very best sequence yet. For positive.
The Mend Shop returns to BBC 1 on Wednesday, Could 11.