Lexington, KY - Over the past few decades, the art of craftsman-oriented repair work has dwindled significantly, making way for an increase in inexpensive (i.e., cheaply made), mass-produced items that don't particularly lend themselves to being "fixed," and the rise of a disposable society.
However, the throwback craft repairman is not yet extinct, and with the recent downturn in the economy, more and more people are gravitating toward fixing what they have rather than buying new. With this in mind, we decided it would be fitting to pay tribute to some of our finest local repairmen - artisans who still focus on the type of detail-oriented, hands-on fix-it jobs that only years of firsthand experience (and an innate talent) can train one for.
On the following pages, you'll meet 10 of Lexington's unique craft repairpeople, workers who pride themselves on customer service and a job well done, whether they are fixing your lawnmower or your vintage radio; your Oriental rug or your favorite pair of shoes. They've kindly supplied us with anecdotes, common diagnoses and tips for keeping your favorite items in tip-top shape. We hope you enjoy meeting them as much as we did.
Heel to toe, and anything in between: Shoe Doc
When it comes to repairing shoes and boots, Jim Chapman of Shoe Doc in the Eastland Shopping Center (affectionately, though not officially, referred to as Dead Man's Shoes) is laced with over 50 years of experience. When he was 10 years old, he worked in his father's shoe repair store in Georgia.
"Of course, I couldn't do much but sweep and take out trash then," Chapman said, "but I watched him wait on customers and listened to what he told them."
Specializing in anything from heels to zipper repair on riding boots, Chapman also sees a lot of footwear come in that's been the victim of naughty puppies - he says sometimes he can fix them, but he definitely doesn't specialize in that sort of repair.
"You'd be surprised. I've had shoes that, honest to goodness, I'd have thrown in the trash," he said. "But they've spent a hundred dollars on a pair of shoes and a pup gets a hold of them -
they don't want to let that shoe go."
In Lexington, Chapman purchased his first shoe repair store in 1982; it was on Mill Street. Through the years, he's opened four different stores, but the Eastland location is the only one now open.
"When I started on Mill Street in '82, there were 16 shoe repair shops in Lexington," he said. "You've got four today."
While many people may opt to purchase new shoes instead of repairing old ones, especially when it comes to cheap, athletic footwear, Chapman says he still sees a considerable amount of business (due to the steady workload, the turnaround time on a repair is about three weeks). He says the consistently good work he and his employees do - as well as the consistent prices - keeps customers coming back.
"To be honest, [heel repairs have] gone up a dollar and a half in the last 30 years. We got $6.50 forever. We had to go up a little on them."
Frays, fringes and rug ailments: Dana Kelly Rugs
A staple in Chevy Chase Plaza since 1978, Dana Kelly Rugs is primarily a retail shop, specializing in new and old Oriental rugs of many varieties; however, a good deal of the shop's attention is devoted to helping rug owners repair their rugs. While dozens of rugs are shipped to Turkey for repairs each month, the shop executes many repairs in-house, including fixing the siding or ends of the rug, repairing or replacing frayed or worn-off fringe, patching torn spots (depending on the size and scope of the tear), and adjusting the size of rug. Repairs can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a year, depending on the extent of the damage and whether it's something that can be fixed in-house or shipped off.
According to Kelly, most of the repairs he oversees are for damage by pets; fixing "housewife repairs" (i.e., failed DIY attempts to spruce up a damaged rug) is another top-ranking repair.
He recommends taking the following preventative measures to keep your rug in tip-top shape: put a pad under it; rotate it every nine to 12 months; vacuum it regularly; don't put potted plants on it (they can cause it to dry rot); and have it professionally cleaned every three to five years (if you gently rub a damp dish towel on it and it picks up dirt, it's time to have it cleaned).
Like most luxury items, sales of oriental rugs have decreased in recent years, as a result, Kelly has seen an increasing number of repair jobs come through his shop.
"People are fixing rather than buying new, because they want to keep what they've got," he said. "It's not as expensive as if they have to replace the whole thing."
Guitars and other string instruments: Willcutt Guitars
Having done repair and restoration work on guitars and other stringed instruments (like an English citern from the 1780s) for over 40 years, Bob Willcutt of Willcutt Guitars has learned a few tricks when it comes to fixing up your grandfather's old six-string, or even mending a shoddy mail-order piece.
"I've gotten pretty good at straightening these things out. I've got my own procedures I've developed over the years," he said. "I can save a lot of these guitars, for a reasonable price."
Willcutt says that aside from fine tuning jobs on guitars' setups -
adjusting the truss rods and bridge and pickup heights, buffing the frets -
the culprit he diagnoses in a lot of problems that come in is humidity. Guitars, even electric ones, are made out of wood, and are therefore "hygroscopic" (susceptible to change due to water absorption). Willcutt says guitars want to see 45 percent humidity, and most factories (and his stores) maintain this level, but the average home in Kentucky during the summer, for example, will have a humidity of 10 - 15 percent.
"That's the crux of most problems, on acoustic guitars especially. Somebody has let them dry out," he said.
Along with guitars and basses, Willcutt sees mandolins, banjos and even dulcimers arrive in need of some attention. "The thing with dulcimers," he said, "a lot of them are homemade, so they're just not made right to begin with."
As one of the largest guitar dealers in the world (through the store's web presence), instrument repair and restoration, time consuming as it may be, isn't the bread and butter for Willcutt's business. However, his affinity for fixing a busted rig or restoring the luster to an older, high-quality guitar (or a lousy one, with sentimental value), keeps Willcutt in the workshop of his Rosemont Garden location.
"I'm not doing it as a living, I'm doing it because I want to do it," he said.
Old radios and other music makers: Layman's Vintage Radios
If you have a piece of vintage audio equipment that needs to be fixed, Terry Layman of Layman's Vintage Radios is your best bet - not just in Lexington, but in a region that extends from Cincinnati to Nashville.
With a small shop on Porter Place stacked high with old-fashioned radios, receivers and other audio components (not to mention shelves full of tubes, capacitors and other internal audio parts), Layman has been fiddling with radios since he was a teenager, and operating as a business for about 20 years. While his repertoire of fixable items has expanded over the years to include the occasional speaker and headphone set, pre-1970s radios and turntables are his most commonly fixed items - he estimates he fixes about three turntables a week.
"It's pretty interesting what you see come back around," Layman said, adding that he has fixed a handful of 8-track players and an increasing number of tape decks in recent years. The most common problem he encounters with radios is internal parts that have gone bad over time; turntables, however, often just need a good internal cleaning. "I've gotten into doing a lot of disassembly and clean up, and normally it works great again," he said.
Bringing an old radio to life after decades of silence can be chilling, and the historical essence is at the heart of Layman's joy in working with old audio equipment.
"You can envision the history that came through these radios that people listened to 70, 80 years ago," he said. "That was before Pearl Harbor, before the Depression started ... Hitler's speeches were heard through a lot of these radios."
Mowers and anything that doesn't make heat: Chevy Chase Hardware
After the armada of push mowers comes through Chevy Chase Hardware for service in early spring, a time of the year that sees Rob Topmiller crank out 15 - 20 tune-ups a day, by mid-summer the really broken mowers start to peeter in. The ones that take a little time to figure out what's wrong with them, especially if the owner has attempted to tinker with it.
"Don't touch it. Don't try to fix it," Topmiller said, referring to finicky mowers. "Because then I don't know what they've done. If I'm the only one who has ever touched it, I know exactly what's wrong with it."
Topmiller said that if people would read their owners' manuals, they'd probably never have to bring their mowers in, and Chevy Chase Hardware owner Bill Edwards agrees. He says negligence (letting gas sit in the tank all winter, turning the machine on its side and allowing oil to soak the air filter) is usually the source of a problem, but he can't be too hard on customers.
"We can't scold them nearly as much as we'd like to," Edwards joked.
Topmiller can do maintenance work on nearly any type of mower (not riding), but if parts are needed for some brands -
such as Honda or Husqvarna -
his hands are tied due to the fact that these corporations will only sell parts to centers that sell their mowers.
Along with lawn mowers, Topmiller and other service people at Chevy Chase Hardware can fix screen windows and doors, storm windows, extension cords, lamps, garden hoses, as well as sharpen a host of items: garden tools, scissors, knives. Topmiller said, so long as an item doesn't generate heat, like hair dryers or space heaters, he will attempt to fix anything.
"This is a hardware and service store, that's what the service is," Topmiller said. "You're getting more than just hardware."
Damaged photos and ex-husbands in the frame: Malick's
Most people may not think of photography as a "fixable" household item, but John and Dawn Malick, who have operated the Walton Avenue photo restoration studio Malick's for nearly 30 years, certainly do.
With the motto "Blending the technology of today with the craftsmanship of yesteryear," the studio specializes in repairing damaged photographs through a combination of digital enhancement and surface painting. The couple started their business long before digital photography was a mainstay, and according to Dawn, their extensive experience in the darkroom has been highly advantageous to their practice today, which, though it is now more rooted in modern technology, still has the air of an old-timey photo shop.
"We're such a throwback - we live over the shop and we both started when we were just kids," Dawn said.
Jobs include repairing photos that have been damaged over time, due to water, scratches, or other surface damage caused by general wear and tear; touching up an old photo that has poor coloration or some other undesirable quality; and combining different photographs of different people into one image (i.e., if you only have separate photographs of your great-grandmother and great-grandfather, the images could be combined into a completely natural-looking couples shot) - all of which can be done without damaging the original print. And, Dawn adds, it's not terribly uncommon to field a request to remove an estranged family member or ex from a group shot.
"I usually say, 'And just what kind of a bush would you like in their place?'" she said with a laugh, adding, "It really doesn't matter what the problem (with the image) is, we can ordinarily solve it for them."
Handbags and airport-abused zippers: The Last Genuine Leather Co.
When Ken Guyer first opened his shop, The Last Genuine Leather Co., over 36 years ago, the focus of his business was producing unique leather trinkets for retail, such as sandals and belts. But when he started offering repair work in his shop, the service really took off.
"The way things are now, it's probably about 50 percent of our business," Guyer said. "We've been doing it for years, and a lot of people are trying to get things fixed that they might not have before. And also, some people are just realizing that they can get [certain items] fixed."
Guyer said a large chunk of items customers bring in for repair are the loop handles on handbags and purses, and zipper repair also accounts for a lot of work in the shop. While the majority of zipper repairs involve getting the slider back on track and fixing the stops, Guyer and his associates can also attach entirely new rows of teeth.
Luggage is also a heavily serviced item at The Last Genuine Leather Co., especially when it comes to zippers.
"We also fix a lot of zippers on luggage, because once those people at the airport get a hold of them, they can be really rough," Guyer said. "For a while, some people at the airport were bringing us bags they had messed up."
Other items that often get serviced at the store include jackets, be it stitching tears or patching holes, and belts, usually when the customer has lost weight and needs new holes to accommodate a trimmer waist line.
"It's a little harder to make belts longer," Guyer said, "but we love poking news holes in belts."
Guyer began hosting leather guild meetings at his shop in January open to anybody interested in the trade. Meetings take place on the first Tuesday of every month; for more information, call the store at (859) 253-3121.
Points of illumination, and shade: The Lamp Place
Since Mark Shawk has been making custom lamps for over 25 years through his business, The Lamp Place, knowing how to restore and repair lamps and other light fixtures, such as chandeliers, is inherent to his trade.
While most of the problems associated with busted lamps are related to the socket, Shawk says, he does tend to chewed wires as well - victims of puppies or kittens, and even a rabbit on one occasion. Most of the socket problems arise from people using bulbs which are too big for the socket, causing them to burn out.
In any repair, Shawk makes sure to use quality products to mitigate instances of future problems.
"I use solid brass sockets. Those stay together better," Shawk said. "A lot of times at Lowe's, and places like that, their sockets are aluminum. Brass is stronger and aluminum is softer, and that's the reason these sockets fall apart. These are solid brass - much better quality."
Along with fixing broken sockets, Shawk also installs a lot of dimmer sockets in lamps, and he also utilizes the services of an employee who can re-line and re-cover fabric lamp shades - for the customer who just doesn't want to replace something they have grown attached to.
"A lot of people find a shade they like, and that's what they want to keep," Shawk said.
As with repaired lamp shades, sentimentality plays a large part in some of the lamp repairs Shawk performs.
"I've worked on some that probably cost as much to repair as they did brand new," Shawk said. "They bought it, they like it; they just want it fixed."
Things that go tick tock: The Clock Shop
If you've spent any time walking down the south side of Short Street, between Upper and Limestone, chances are you've stopped to peek into the fabulous window display of The Clock Shop. The puppets, dolls, gadgets and clocks reveal the uniqueness of the eclectic shop, but don't be fooled -
fixing clocks is the shop's primary business, and one that owner Edgar Hume has been practicing for more than 30 years.
"Maybe it's an egotistical thing, but we want to do the best possible work that you can possibly do," he said. "We've been doing this for so long that hopefully we've got a really good reputation."
While the small specialty shop, which also features a large selection of magic tricks and toys, may not have a particularly high volume of business, they have many repeat customers, those who are attracted to the shop for the the high level of customer service and guarantees offered by Hume -
if he fixes a clock and there is a problem with it later that he either caused or exacerbated, he will rebuild it at no charge.
While prices to fix clocks vary depending on the problem, Hume said he's usually able to provide an accurate quote when the item is brought in; if he finds, while working on a piece, that the problem is more complicated than he originally thought, he will call the owner with the new quote and put it back together at no cost to the owner if they decide it's more than they want to shell over. The most common problems he sees are due to heat, air conditioning or moisture, which can warp a wooden clock and "put it out of it's tick tock." Other common problems include a natural wearing down and reshaping of the plates that the internal gears rest in.
The shop, which also does repairs on watches and music boxes, specializes in top-of-the-line museum accepted restoration, and Hume mentored under Lexington master clockmaker Newt Nowell years ago before branching out to start his own business. He said when he sends a fixed clock back to its owner, he looks at it the way a parent would look at a child they are sending out into the world.
"They better do well," he said, wagging his finger.
Anything that takes a coin: Kentucky Game Exchange
With a storefront teeming with pinball machines, vintage neon bar signs, a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Elvis Presley, and other venerable kitsch, Kentucky Game Exchange has been a landmark on Winchester Road for about 15 years. Home to hundreds of arcade games, slot machines, pool tables, foosball tables and jukeboxes, the shop is a game enthusiast's playground, and according to owner Stan Fish, with the exception of the refrigerator and a nostalgic family photograph, "everything is for sale." In addition to selling coin-operated items of all sorts, Kentucky Game Exchange also specializes in repairing these items, operating under the motto "If it takes a coin, we'll fix it."
With a mechanical engineering background through the University of Kentucky and more than 20 years of experience, Fish has obtained a wealth of knowledge on repairing this equipment, boasting one of the "most extensive manual libraries east of the Mississippi." The slow decline in the arcade business (due to the rise of the home game systems) has caused a shift in Fish's business - where he once dealt primarily with commercial dealers, individual home owners are now his No. 1 clients.
"Mostly what we do is sell and offer support, but we'll fix anything that anyone brings in," Fish said, adding that pinball machine repairs make up the bulk of his work. "We still do repair work and sales to guys who are in the business, but there's just so few of them anymore."
With so many arcade dealers and repair shops having gone under in the past two decades, Fish's shop fills a small niche not offered anywhere else in the state. He said he's been continually surprised in recent years at the distance clients will travel for his products and services.
"People in Lexington, I honestly believe they think there's a place like this in every town," he said. "It isn't like that."