As an antique shop owner, you have multiple options when you sell products. Along with selling products as-is and original restorations, you may upgrade and enhance items to give antiques new life. One option includes metal plating.

Metal plating comes in a variety of forms and includes various metals, including precious metals like gold. Learn various ways metal plating helps enhance antique products you sell in your shop. With the various plating options, you will have the ability to provide your customers with a wide variety of product options.

1. Furniture Restorations

Furniture is often the bulkiest of all items sold in an antique shop. Provide a modern twist to a piece of furniture with metal plating. One benefit of metal plating includes the ability to cover rust stains and worn spots on older metal furniture pieces.

Choose to apply metal plating to wood furniture for multiple benefits. The metal plating adds a new look to the furniture and expands the diverse use of the furniture with protective metals for use either outdoors or indoors.

The usefulness of the metal plating helps as well. For example, you could have an antique metal farm sink undergo a metal plating process. With the new metal, customers may be more likely to use the sink for actual dishes and not worry about old metal or rust causing problems with dishes.

2. Bulk Items

As you plan out products for your business, you may come across bulk collections of items. Add diversity and options for bulk items with the use of metal plating. For example, you may have a large collection of kitchen stools.

Some of the stools could have a copper plate finish, gold plate finish, or silver plate finish. Each design appeals to the shoppers' variety of interests and kitchen styles. Use the color options in sets rather than individual in case a customer seeks out a whole set instead of just a single stool.

You could also use the bulk items to create your own sets. For example, you may have a kitchen table with four chairs which are not quite alike. When each chair has been plates with the same metal material, you have the ability to add a matching cushion and create a cohesive set a customer may be more likely to purchase.

3. Decorative Wall Items

Create a sleek and modern look to many antiques with metal plating applied to decorative wall items. For example, old wooden picture frames could have worn or weakened corners. A full metal plating restores the ability to hang and decorate with the photo frame.

You may choose to add plating to large collections of photo frames to create matching decor and provide customers with a variety of sizes. The metal plating forms right over the original design so you will still see the shape, outline, and patterns from the antique frames.

4. Animal Products & Designs

A variety of the antiques you sell may include animal products and designs. For example, you may sell old skulls of animals like deer, alligators, and other creatures. A metal plating helps preserve the shape and design of the skull while blocking out the bone areas and any possible germ issues people may have.

The plated skull becomes a decoration that can be placed on any flat surface within the home. Taxidermy animals like fish may also have metal plating to create a unique design.

Besides skulls, other animal products may include animal statues for gardens and yards. A variety of metal plating offers all-weather protection and nice finishes. For example, you could have a frog statue gold plated for use next to a garden or backyard pond.

For more information on the metal plating process, contact us at General Brite Plating. We have years of experience adding metal plate designs to a variety of products and will help your vision come to life.