Faking It: The Hot New Approach To Finishing

Metal finishing often requires some high-tech equipment and the industrial know-how for said equipment. While you should never dismiss the fine art of industrial metal finishing, you can now achieve near-similar results at home. Faking metal finishes comes as easy as your nearest home improvement goods store. As long as you follow the instructions on the kits you buy, your DIY metal projects will come out looking like a pro's. Here are some of the fake metal finishing kits you can buy and do by yourself.

Chrome Plating

Car bumpers always lose their shine over time. Yet, they do not have to lose their shine. Chrome plating kits are very popular car accessories. Not only can you find these kits in home improvement stores, but also in auto accessory retail shops. Like all other faux metal finishes, this one either sprays on or you can paint it on with a brush. Large items, such as car bumpers, are good for the brush treatment, while the spray-on kits can turn up the shine on your bathroom faucet. 

Aged Bronze

There are two types of metal finishing kits for aged bronze. The first one uses an aging cream that speeds up the aging process on anything that is actually solid bronze. You can only use this kit on real bronze; nothing else. The second kit transforms absolutely anything you want to look like aged bronze, but the object itself could be porcelain, glass, etc.. This second kit relies on bronze paint and a faux patina paint to follow the bronze paint job.

Burnished Nickel

In an industrial setting, the metal finishing technician would spend a few hours running the metal under a metal wire burnishing sander. With the fake kit, you paint the surface with the "flat nickel" paint, run a sandpaper sander over the top of the first dry coat, paint it again, and then apply another coat. You can sand the second coat as well, but the fake finish should look just about right at this point. Just make sure your "burnishing" strokes all head in the exact same direction so that the finish looks just like the real thing.

Gold or Silver Plating

Who does not want their jewelry to get a new lease on life? Dip all of your jewelry into a gold or silver plating kit to restore its shine. If you want to make something much larger gold or silver, you will need to buy extra plating kits.

For more information, contact companies like Powder Coatings of Utah.