When a piece gets damaged

Before anything else

Pick up every fragment, including the small ones, and put them in an envelope. Do not vacuum the area until you have.

Photograph the piece where it is, before you move it. If it fell, photograph what it fell onto as well.

Then leave it alone and send me the photographs. Most of the damage I am asked to fix was made worse by somebody trying to help in the first hour.

A lifted mirror

This is the commonest thing that goes wrong and the easiest to put right. The clay around a mirror can shrink very slightly over years, and eventually the seat no longer grips.

It is not a sign the piece was badly made, though it can be a sign it was hung somewhere too dry or too warm, directly above a heater for instance.

Resetting means working fresh material into the seat and bedding the mirror back so the clay comes up to its edge again. It is quick and it is invisible when done properly.

Do not glue it. A blob of adhesive sits the mirror proud of the surface, and once adhesive is in the seat the proper repair becomes much harder.

Hairline cracks

Thin cracks that follow the raised line usually come from movement in the board rather than failure of the clay. A damp wall, a big temperature swing, or a piece that was carried flat and flexed.

They can generally be filled and repainted so they do not show. The colour match is the fiddly part, and it is easier on a plain ground than on a blended one.

A crack that runs across the relief rather than along it is a different matter, and usually means the board itself has moved.

Cracks that come from the making

Some cracking is the maker's fault, and it shows up about a year later rather than immediately.

If a piece is rushed through drying, the surface sets while the material underneath is still losing moisture. The stress stays in the piece and releases later, usually at the thickest point of the relief.

That is why I will not take an order I cannot dry properly in the time available, and why I say so when a date is not realistic. It is also the one failure I would replace rather than repair, because the cause is still inside the piece.

If something I made cracks this way, tell me.

Impact against moisture

They look different and they need different answers. Impact gives you a sharp local break with clean edges, often with mirrors displaced around it.

Moisture damage is softer and more spread out. The relief goes chalky, colour lifts, and the clay loses its edge. It usually starts at the bottom edge or the back.

Impact is repairable. Moisture damage, once it has gone through the relief, usually is not, because the material has changed rather than broken.

This is the reason I keep saying no bathrooms, and no wall behind a hob.

If it arrived damaged

Photograph the outer box before you open it any further, then the packing inside, then the piece. Keep everything.

Send me all of it straight away rather than waiting to see whether it bothers you. Courier claims have short windows and the packaging is part of the evidence.

What happens next depends on what broke. A displaced mirror in transit is a repair. A piece that arrived in two parts is a conversation I will have with you properly rather than by template.

What to attempt yourself

Reseating a mirror with clear adhesive. Please do not. It is the single most common thing people try and it makes the real repair harder.

Touching in paint. Only if you have the exact colour, which you almost certainly do not, and only on a flat ground.

Cleaning around the damage with a dry brush. Fine, and useful before photographing it.

Filling a crack with wall putty or filler. No. Household fillers behave differently from the material around them and the repair will show and then fail.

Colour matching on an older piece

Paint ages. A piece that has had three years of daylight is not the colour it left the studio, and a perfect match to the original mix will look wrong next to it.

I match to the piece as it is now rather than to the recipe, which means I need good photographs in natural light, or the piece itself.

On a strongly coloured ground this is harder than on white or cream. Tell me which it is when you first message me.

When replacing is the better answer

If the board has warped through, the relief will keep cracking no matter what is done to the surface.

If moisture has gone through the clay across a large area.

If more than a third of the mirrors have lifted, which usually means the whole seat layer has failed rather than individual seats.

I would rather tell you that than take money for a repair I do not believe will hold. It happens a few times a year.

Stopping it happening again

Two fixings spread across the width rather than one in the middle. A single hook lets a piece rotate slowly out of level and that twist is what opens cracks along the relief.

A fixing rated well above the actual weight, into masonry or a stud rather than plasterboard alone.

Away from steam, away from a wall that gets washed, away from direct sun for hours a day.

Not behind a door, and not in a narrow corridor at shoulder height. Most impact damage I see is from a piece being walked into rather than falling.

What a repair actually involves

For a lifted mirror, the old seat is cleaned out, fresh material worked in, and the mirror bedded back so the clay closes over its edge. Then it dries, which is most of the elapsed time.

For a crack, the line is opened slightly so there is something for the filler to key into, filled, levelled, then repainted and blended outward so there is no hard edge.

Neither is fast, because the drying is the same drying that governs making. A repair that is handed back the same day has been rushed.

Sending a piece back to be repaired

Pack it the way it arrived, face protected, upright, with the fragments in a separate envelope so they do not move around and cause more damage.

Photograph it before packing. If it gets worse in transit, those photographs are how we tell which damage happened when.

For international pieces, the economics usually do not work and I will say so. Shipping a damaged piece from Berlin to Gurugram and back costs more than most repairs are worth, and I would rather talk you through doing the simple version yourself.

Pieces made by someone else

I will look at them, and I have repaired work I did not make. Send photographs first.

What I cannot do is match an unknown maker's clay mix or paint exactly, so a repair on someone else's piece is more visible than on my own.

If it is a piece with sentimental value, say so. It changes how much time is worth spending on it.

Questions before ordering