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00:00Up next on American Restoration.
00:02Wow, that thing is bad.
00:04Yeah, it's a World War II dog tag machine.
00:06This thing would pump out a thousand tags a day.
00:09Wow.
00:10Where'd you find this?
00:11This has been in our family since 1964.
00:13We would like to surprise my brother with it all done so his grandson could ride it.
00:18I'm seeing a horse load of dents.
00:20Well, yeah.
00:21Brelli, what are you doing?
00:23I'm just looking for a dog.
00:25Now this one will play fetch with you.
00:26Go get it!
00:27Go get it!
00:29Oh, this is harder than I thought.
00:32Remember back in the day when things were made by hand and people took pride in their work?
00:37My name's Rick Dale, and I bring these things back to life.
00:42Every restoration has its own set of challenges.
00:46There's no owner's manual for what we do, but there's no job we can't handle.
01:01I think this is it right here.
01:03Okay.
01:03Earlier we got a call asking us to come look at a family heirloom that somebody wants to get restored.
01:08The most satisfying part of my job is restoring memories, so I can't wait to see what this is.
01:15Hey, I'm Rick with Rick's Restorations.
01:18I'm so glad you're here.
01:19Come on in.
01:19You got something for us to see?
01:21I do.
01:21I hope you like gold toys.
01:23Oh, yeah.
01:23I called Rick today to come over here and take a look at my brother's late 40s riding horse to
01:29see if it could be restored.
01:30It's kind of beat up.
01:32That's awesome.
01:33These are cool.
01:34What is it?
01:35It's a MoBo, man.
01:37It's a MoBo.
01:38Do you know anything about him?
01:39They were made in London.
01:41This horse was a Bronco.
01:42This is a Bronco?
01:44Yeah, it's called a Bronco.
01:45A wild horse, right?
01:46Right.
01:46It's called a Bronco.
01:47Right.
01:48Looks pretty wild.
01:49And he was rode pretty wild.
01:50Yep.
01:51Where'd you find this?
01:52One day, my mother was taking some garbage out to the city dump and rescued him, so she's the
01:57original picker because he was at the dump and she brought him home from my little brother.
02:01Wow.
02:02Did he look like this when you got it?
02:04No, he looked better.
02:05He looks like somebody took a hammer to him.
02:06Well, yeah.
02:07I'm seeing a horse load of dents.
02:09This is a really nice post-war riding toy that was made out of tin.
02:14It's not in the best condition, but considering it was rescued from a junkyard and given to
02:19a four-year-old over 40 years ago, I mean, we're lucky it's even in one piece.
02:24What do you want me to do to this?
02:25We'd like for it to be able to be ridden again.
02:27My brother now has a grandson that's almost three.
02:30Okay.
02:30So we would like to surprise my brother with it all done so his grandson could ride it.
02:34Okay.
02:35So you want it totally original, like it came for Christmas.
02:38Okay.
02:38Right.
02:39There's a spring missing that moves him back and forth.
02:43So that spring's gone, so that's why he's a little loose right now, you know?
02:47The biggest challenge I'm going to have is the dents.
02:50So we'll tear it apart.
02:52He'll probably have two to three hours sandblast and get that done.
02:56I bet you I have 16 hours of bodywork on this one.
03:00Okay.
03:00And then we'll paint it and pinstripe it, probably six hours in that.
03:04All that together, you're looking right around $3,200.
03:07Wow.
03:08$3,200 is a lot of money.
03:11Yeah.
03:12I mean, you figure 16 hours of bodywork.
03:13He's going into a total operation.
03:19Well, okay, we got a deal.
03:21All right.
03:21Awesome.
03:22When Rick said $3,200, it kind of took my breath away, but you can't put a price on a
03:26family heirloom.
03:27And so my brother's going to be really excited to see him.
03:30Brand new, like coming off the showroom floor.
03:32Really?
03:33What's the horse doing in the front seat?
03:35Well, we can't let him ride in the back.
03:36How about if I just put you in the back?
03:46Oh, this thing is hung like a horse.
03:49Sorry.
03:51Leave you alone for a minute.
03:52Look what you do.
03:53Rick just handed off this 1940s mobile horse.
03:56You're going to need a lot of bodywork, but first me and Dave have to tear it down.
04:02Spinning on you?
04:03Yeah.
04:04Can you grab it?
04:04With some pliers or something?
04:06Is it going to get this mechanism out of here?
04:12There you go.
04:16That's it, huh?
04:17Good night, Dave.
04:28How's it going?
04:29A customer who said he's got a rare piece of machinery that he'd like to get restored is stopping by
04:33the shop.
04:34I love it when unusual stuff rolls through here, so I can't wait to see what it is.
04:39Wow, that thing is bad.
04:41Yeah, it's a World War II dog tag machine.
04:43Man, that thing is awesome.
04:45I came to Rick's Restorations today to bring my 1940s dog tag machine to get restored.
04:50Just don't let it fall off, okay?
04:52We're hoping Rick can fix this because we really need to get this machine running.
04:56All right, so where did it come from?
04:58You know, actually, I picked it up at an antique store, and I seen it was from Mare Islands during
05:03World War II.
05:03Right.
05:04That's the naval base from the city of Vallejo, California, where my surplus store is.
05:08Right.
05:08So you have an army surplus place?
05:11Yes, victory stores in Vallejo, California.
05:13Oh, cool.
05:13This machine, it's called a graphotype.
05:15It was invented in the late 1800s to make metal ID plates for soldiers, which we now call dog tags.
05:22The reason why you had an ID on you was if you died, they wanted to know you wanted to
05:27bury them, and they had to bury them with their name on there.
05:29So, like, in 1917, they started coming to be mandatory.
05:33It was on every single guy.
05:35Okay.
05:36It's got stuff like your blood type, what religion you are.
05:39I mean, they had all kinds of stuff like that on them, and this thing here would pump out 1
05:43,000 tags a day.
05:45Wow.
05:46I mean, it's just like a typewriter.
05:47I mean, it's set up to, you know, you've got spacing in here, and I want to say the dog
05:52tag goes in here, yes?
05:53Yes.
05:54Yeah.
05:54I've seen one, one time, but it was a lot smaller than this.
05:57Okay.
05:57It wasn't this big.
05:58So, what are you thinking about doing with this?
06:00I definitely need it to work because I have a lot of the dog tags to stand.
06:03Okay.
06:04So, Rick, what do you think this will cost to restore?
06:07All right.
06:07Well, you've got a lot of moving parts in this thing.
06:10I bet I got eight hours of two guys tearing this thing down.
06:13All the mechanical, intricate pieces will get prepped and polished, cleaned up, you know, like, make them look all brand
06:19new again.
06:19Okay.
06:19That's going to take probably four or five hours, and then we've got to assemble it.
06:22I bet it's going to take me two days to assemble it.
06:24By the time I'm done restoring it, making it all work, I'm probably looking at, I'm looking at $6,500.
06:38What do you think?
06:39$6,500, you're good for a deal?
06:40Yeah.
06:41Good.
06:42Awesome.
06:42So, I'll get my guys to take this over and put it in line.
06:45Let's go in the office and take care of some paperwork.
06:47Sounds good.
06:48$6,500, that is a lot of money, but I'm hoping Rick will get it fixed where we can make
06:52plenty of money off that machine.
07:00Look at that dog.
07:02Little wolf dog.
07:03Oh, look at that fat little thing.
07:05Brelli, what are you doing?
07:07Uh, I'm just looking for a dog.
07:09Why?
07:10I figure, you know, I can learn some responsibility and, you know, why not?
07:16Makes yourself a better person?
07:17Yeah, but they're $1,000 of responsibility.
07:21Brelli, they're probably pedigrees.
07:22I really think your best bet, you should just go down to the pound, spend a few bucks, get their
07:27shots, find a friend.
07:29It's cheaper?
07:30It's way cheaper.
07:32Okay.
07:33All right?
07:33Now, get out of my chair.
07:34All right.
07:35All right?
07:36All right.
07:37Get to work.
07:41Arf, arf, arf.
07:44Come on back here.
07:45I brought my brother here today to Rick's Restorations.
07:47We've got a surprise for him, and I'm so excited.
07:49All right, here we go.
07:50Okay, all right.
07:51Here we go.
07:51Oh, my God!
07:53Oh, my God!
07:55What are you looking for in a dog?
07:57I'm just looking for, like, a best friend, you know, a loyal...
08:00Um, what about a pig?
08:01Look at that guy.
08:02They are so cool.
08:03They're actually, you can house train them.
08:05It's huge.
08:06It's like three dogs in one.
08:17So, what is this thing, Rick?
08:18It's a graphotype.
08:19It's made for the ID plates or the dog tags.
08:23Okay.
08:24You know, but what happens is, is you should be able to slide it in there, slip it down, slide
08:29it over, and then you push on this, it's going to bring this one around to stamp on whatever number
08:34I just pushed with or whatever ladder.
08:35We are restoring a World War II dog tag machine.
08:38And this thing has more springs, levers, and gears than a race car.
08:42It's not just an aesthetic restoration.
08:45The customer wants to make some money off the tags it pumps out, so it's got to work.
08:49There's a couple of things missing.
08:51It's got a lubing system in it with baths in it that actually lubes everything, so I think it'd have
08:56some kind of a grease pan on there.
08:58Otherwise, the grease would have went everywhere.
09:00Something screwed in here, but there's something missing.
09:02This thing is way more complicated than we first thought, and we have missing parts we've got to find.
09:09I'm going to have Kelly do some research and start tracking down these missing parts, while Kyle and Dave start
09:14stripping this down.
09:16Okay.
09:16Look at that pen piece.
09:22Cool.
09:24Now we're getting somewhere.
09:25What a pain.
09:26Welcome to reality.
09:28Wow.
09:29Fonzie, come here.
09:30Take a look at this.
09:32What do you think?
09:35Wow, man.
09:36Yeah.
09:37This typewriting mechanism is insanely complicated, so I'm bringing in some backup.
09:42We've got this new guy, Fonzie.
09:43He's a master mechanic, and it's going to take both our mechanical know-how to get this thing humming again.
09:48Is that going to be fun?
09:49A lot of fun in this one.
09:51He just volunteered.
09:52He's here.
10:00Brett Lee's been wanting a dog for a while now, and frankly, a little responsibility wouldn't hurt the kid.
10:06So I'm glad he's on his way to the pound to hopefully find one.
10:10All right.
10:11Hi.
10:11How are you?
10:12You want to meet one?
10:13Yeah, let's meet it.
10:14Let's go.
10:15All right.
10:16Brett Lee today came in to look for a dog.
10:18He was very proud.
10:20He wanted to adopt instead of shop for a dog, which was pretty cool.
10:23So what are you looking for in a dog?
10:25I'm just looking for, like, a best friend, like a loving dog, you know, loyal.
10:30Oh, okay.
10:31Let's go look.
10:32I know you came here for a dog, but what about a pig?
10:36I don't think I can get a pig.
10:37Look how big he is.
10:38That's like three dogs.
10:40If Cowboy gets his hands on this guy, he'll be ribs and bacon by supper time.
10:44So I'm going to stick with plan A and check out some pooches.
10:47I thought we'd start small.
10:48Oh, look at that dog.
10:49This is Elroy.
10:50He's one of our longest residents.
10:53Oh, you're just a little.
10:55He might look at it up.
10:56What kind of dog is this?
10:57It's a Chihuahua.
10:59A Chihuahua?
10:59Yeah.
11:01I'm looking for, like, a bigger dog.
11:03Okay.
11:03It's just funny looking.
11:05Now this one will play fetch with you.
11:07Really?
11:07Let's try it out.
11:09Go.
11:11Go get it.
11:13Go get it.
11:15Go get it.
11:16Go get it.
11:18This is harder than I thought it was going to be.
11:20I thought it was going to be easy.
11:21Don't give up on me yet.
11:23If I knew that finding the right dog was going to be this hard, I would have just got a
11:26turtle.
11:29Okay.
11:30It took me a little while, but I found Nana.
11:33Nana?
11:34Nana.
11:34Hi, Nana.
11:36Ah!
11:37Oh!
11:38There it is.
11:38Oh!
11:39Woo!
11:40What's up?
11:41This might be the perfect dog for you.
11:43You think so?
11:44I think so.
11:45She likes me, huh?
11:48Go get it.
11:49All right.
11:50Are you ready to commit to this girl?
11:52Yeah, I mean, I think I can handle it.
11:54Okay.
11:55I really think she's good, so.
11:57Nana, are you ready to go home?
12:02The Graphotype keyboard mechanism has oil and grease caked all over.
12:06So Fonzie's using a cleaning solution to scrape off the sludge while Bud glass beads the hardware.
12:14Meanwhile, Dave and I got to start cutting up this mobile horse so Phil can bang out all the dents.
12:19All right.
12:20Did you get him torn apart?
12:21Yeah.
12:23No, he's going to have to come in half.
12:25Once we split the legs in half, it'll be much easier pounding out the rough spots from the inside.
12:30It's not tacked all the way around, so we'll just hit these tacks.
12:33He'll peel around apart.
12:34It'll be painless.
12:36For us?
12:37What do you got, like some sentimental value to a little horse?
12:39No, not at all.
12:40Here, if you feel real, real bad here, you can just cover his eyes.
12:43Give him a little anesthesia.
12:45He won't remember a thing.
12:46He won't feel anything, believe me.
12:48There you go.
12:50Where do you want to start?
12:52Don't matter.
12:57Well, he's got blood flying all over me.
13:00If you get hit with blood right now, you've got a problem.
13:05Woo-hoo!
13:06Woo-hoo!
13:11Nice.
13:23We've been working on a military graphotype machine that was missing some key parts.
13:28Kelly made some calls, and the cheapest option was actually to buy another graphotype machine
13:33so we could salvage the parts we needed.
13:35We just had it delivered, and Kyle and Tyler are going to start stripping it down for parts.
13:40Whatever's left, we're going to take directly to the boneyard and use it for future projects.
13:45I know we needed this, because that's what holds the paper on.
13:49So when you're typing away, you can read what you have to type.
13:52I know we need this, too.
13:53This is good stuff.
13:55This is what we needed, too.
13:56It's got it all.
13:58It looks like Kelly nailed it.
13:59This graphotype has all the parts we needed.
14:01So Kyle and I are going to take them off, get them prepped and painted so they match it as
14:05a machine.
14:05All right, well, got everything we need.
14:21This mobile horse is a kid's toy, so I want to make it really irresistible and fun for anybody under
14:2510 years old
14:26by layering in a lot of colors and patterns.
14:30I'm going to draw out some patterns on masking tape, cut out the shapes, and then layer on even more
14:35tape.
14:43As you alternate between the different colors of paint and peel the masking tape away, you can get some really
14:47complex designs that look amazing.
14:52When this horse is done, it's going to look like it rode straight out of the storybook.
15:05Hey, Pooch.
15:06What's going on?
15:07Who are you?
15:08This is Nana.
15:09Nana?
15:10Nana?
15:10Oh.
15:11Obviously, you haven't taught her anything yet.
15:13No, she's still learning.
15:14This is my first day.
15:16Get that dog out of my face.
15:17Kick it down.
15:18Kick it down.
15:18Come on.
15:19Good, girl.
15:20What do you think?
15:22It's a good-looking dog.
15:23What's this?
15:25That's the dog I got.
15:26What are you doing?
15:27You cutie.
15:29Oh.
15:31She's got mad heart.
15:32Yeah, but trainer, I mean, look, she's on the table.
15:35That's a bad thing.
15:36Okay.
15:36Okay, you guys got to get back to work.
15:38Brantley, take her home.
15:40All right, let's go.
15:40Back to work, guys.
15:42All right, mate.
15:45It's all right.
15:52I love the paint job, Warren.
15:54Looks cool, huh?
15:55My team did a hell of a job bringing this horse back to life.
15:58My only regret is that I'm too darn big to ride it myself.
16:03Put your hand over here so I can hurt my hand.
16:06I ain't worried about your hand.
16:07Damn.
16:16This little Bronco is about ready to buck.
16:19The client was having it restored for her brother, and she's bringing him to the shop to see it.
16:23But he has no idea we've restored his favorite childhood toy.
16:28So this is going to be a huge surprise for you.
16:31Hey, Dorothy.
16:32Hey, Rick.
16:32How are you?
16:33Good.
16:34What's going on?
16:34Hey, not much.
16:35I just brought someone here with me.
16:36This is my brother, David.
16:37How are you doing?
16:38Good to meet you.
16:39It's supposed to be some kind of surprise.
16:41She's surprising me.
16:42I don't know what she's surprising me with.
16:43I'll show you.
16:44All right.
16:45Come on back here.
16:45I brought my brother here today to Rick's Restorations, and I'm so excited.
16:49I can't wait for him to see why he's here.
16:52I can't believe it's white.
16:53Oh, my God.
16:55Oh, my God.
16:56I can't believe that.
16:57Holy smokes.
16:58I cannot believe that.
16:59Oh, my gosh.
17:00Oh, my gosh.
17:02Unbelievable.
17:03For me, are you okay?
17:04Yeah.
17:04You sure?
17:05Yeah.
17:05Oh, my God.
17:07It doesn't look like the mobile I used to remember.
17:09Couldn't believe my eyes.
17:11I don't know.
17:11It glistened.
17:13Last time I was saying it, the pedals were broke off.
17:15There wasn't much paint on it.
17:17Right.
17:18I can't believe it's white.
17:19The biggest problem was all the dents.
17:21The legs were all dented up, so we split them in half, and then we pounded it out.
17:25There's a lot of art.
17:26It's all hand-painted.
17:27Painted all the mane out.
17:28This is sort of like an airbrushing process where you lightly paint it just like it was before.
17:32And then we cleared the whole thing.
17:34The reins on it, we had somebody help us hand-make these.
17:37You put your feet on.
17:38You're held on the reins.
17:39I mean, you're basically learning how to ride a horse.
17:41It looks amazing.
17:42Thank you so much.
17:43I'm happy.
17:44I know he's happy, and I appreciate it.
17:46All right, well, let's go in the office, take care of the rest of your paperwork.
17:49Outside of the birth of my grandchildren, this is probably one of the most exciting days of my life right
17:52here.
17:54All right, come on.
17:55Let's get you into some training.
17:58Now.
17:59Now.
18:00Listen to me.
18:01You're going to go on timeout.
18:03I came to Rick's Restorations today to pick up my 1940s graphite.
18:09One, two, three.
18:22We've been doing a very complicated restoration on a World War II-era dog tag machine.
18:28The keyboard mechanism on this thing is so complex.
18:31I actually have Fonzie, who's one of the best mechanics I've ever seen, putting the pieces back together, while the
18:37rest of the crew is assembling the body.
18:39If all goes well, we'll be banging out dog tags in no time.
18:44Hey, babe.
18:46Hey.
18:47Hey, Ray's here to pick up his graphite.
18:49Hey, Ray.
18:50Hey, Rick.
18:50How we going?
18:50Good.
18:51How you been?
18:51Good, good.
18:52I came to Rick's Restorations today to pick up my 1940s graphite.
18:55This thing's real complicated, and it wasn't working before, so I hope Rick got it back together.
19:00So here we go.
19:01You ready?
19:02One, two, three.
19:04Wow, look at that.
19:05Oh, wow.
19:06What do you think?
19:06That's awesome.
19:08When Rick first unveiled the graphite machine, I couldn't believe it.
19:11It looked brand new.
19:11I couldn't even believe it was from the 40s.
19:13I mean, it was awesome.
19:15And the light and the clipboard, wow.
19:18I mean, that wasn't even on there before.
19:20This doesn't even look like the same machine I dropped off.
19:22What's your secret?
19:23What did you do?
19:24Well, it had some broken pieces, missing pieces.
19:28Okay.
19:28So what we did was we scoured the country, and then the parts we needed we found on a unit.
19:33The unit itself didn't work, but the pieces we needed were there.
19:37It was missing this clipboard.
19:38This is the work area.
19:39The guy running the machine would come in, put himself a pad in here, and type it out
19:43off of this.
19:44The light, you know, the light was a big deal because, quite honestly, in a big barracks
19:49or something like that, there's not a whole bunch of light.
19:51So this was very necessary to be able to see.
19:54And another big deal was this pan.
19:57It was basically a drip pan, you know?
19:58Okay.
19:58It was a drip pan for here and for underneath the whole motor.
20:02See down inside here?
20:03This mechanism, what this thing does is it spins around, and it's got all these springs for
20:07tension on it.
20:08Oh, wow.
20:09It's an incredible piece of machinery.
20:11Cool.
20:11Well, Rick, it looks awesome, but does it work?
20:14Well, that's always a thing, you know, when we're doing stuff, and we try to make it work.
20:17We'll find out.
20:18Okay.
20:18I'm going to go get me a chair.
20:19Okay.
20:20I'd be really bummed if I came all the way to Las Vegas to pick up my graphotype, and
20:23this thing doesn't work.
20:24Okay.
20:25So he'd sit here.
20:28Okay.
20:30I'm going to slide it in the jaws.
20:31We're going to bring that down.
20:33Okay.
20:34And then I'm going to bring this over.
20:35So I need to know what you want to say on the first tag.
20:37You can put V-L-L.
20:39Okay.
20:40So it's V-A-L-L, right?
20:44L-L-E-J-L.
20:46E-J-O.
20:51You're going to lift this up.
20:52You're going to pull this up.
20:54There you go.
20:55Wow.
20:56That was awesome.
20:56I am so happy this machine works.
20:58Totally happy with it.
21:00Awesome.
21:00Hey, Rick, thank you so much.
21:02Now I've got to get this thing back here so I can stamp out a bunch of dog tags.
21:05You only got like 20 times that are you have to do.
21:08Come on over here, and we'll go inside, and Kelly can take care of the rest of the paperwork,
21:13and then we'll help you load it up.
21:14Cool.
21:17Come on.
21:18Let's get you into some training.
21:20Pick it up.
21:20Yeah.
21:23Oh, look at that.
21:24I didn't even have to tell you to sit.
21:26You know what this is?
21:28This is a dog tag that we made, and it says your name.
21:33Nana.
21:34You're going to be an easy dog to work with, huh?
21:38Come on.
21:39Lunch is on me.
21:43Good girl.
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