Going to antique repair to augment one's income is a wise decision. Interest in antiques never seems to wane. If anything, interest and prices keep on rising year after year. The growing market in antique repair can provide you with a dependable source of income, good times and bad. Making this antique repair business pay requires a liking for working with your hands, but you don't need the skill and experience of an expert cabinetmaker.

Most real antiques were handmade, in home workshops, with relatively simple hand tools. In antique repair you earn money in a variety of ways. For example:

1. Antique repair refinishing. Usually, someone has found an old piece of a barn or at an auction,and wants years of paint removed and the natural finish restored.
2. Antique repair rebuilding. First-class pieces are scarce. Most buyers have to content themselves with items that are lacking in parts, or need some repair to make them serviceable.
3. Antique repair faking. Yes, faking. Buyers often can't buy a piece that fits all their specifications as regards to design, period, color and size. For them, you buy a new or unfinished piece and try to duplicate some of the age of a real antique.

A few simple but smart tricks, plus a few hand tools, can put you in this antique repair business quickly and easily. You can have a backlog of interesting, profitable work in no time at all.

You'll probably work at antique repair business at less than your true worth in the beginning. Until you gain experience, you will probably estimate your time too low. Basically, this is an antique business where you charge for the hours you work.

Don't be afraid to charge the right amount per hour for your antique repair time. Remember - people are very careful to whom they entrust heirlooms and other valuable antique items. Ten hours a week of relaxing work in your workshop (which you probably do free right now) can bring you substantial amount a week in welcome income.

The antique repair tools you will need, even if you want to go deeply into this business, should not cost you too much. You will need basic antique repair items like hammers, saws, scrapers, drills, and rasps. An electric drill that can be adapted for buffing or sanding is a good investment, even though it was unknown at the time the piece was made.


If you expect to do antique repair restoration work, a power saw and woodworking lathe will be necessary. For faking antiques, provide yourself with a variety of roughing tools to round edges and duplicate worn spots. One of the best antique repair "tools" for improvising the nicks and scratches of age is a few feet of heavy chain. You literally "beat" the pieces with the chain to make marks suggesting age, and the effect is more realistic than the hammer marks often passed off as "distressing" in commercial pieces.

To start your antique repair business, get to know all the antique dealers in the neighborhood. Show them samples of your work, and before you know it, they will give you all the antique repair work you can handle. If you work for a dealer, you should consider some sort of "wholesale" rate because you won't have any promotion expenses to get the business.

Another way to attract customers in antique repair business is to run small, regular ads in the classified pages online and in newspaper and in the yellow pages of the telephone directory. If there is an antique fair nearby, consider taking a booth and putting on a demonstration of antique refinishing. Finally, because antique repair courses in this subject are so popular, you might consider offering lessons at the local adult school.

True, you might lose some antiqe repair business to people who will decide to do their own work. But this is often offset usually by the increase in your reputation, and the prices you can charge in the future.

This is an antique business that can be kept in your home workshop for as long as you like. On the other hand, it can be lucrative enough to open a regular antique repair shop later on and to add helpers to do the work under your supervision.You should also consider adding chair caning, stenciling and decorating, and other business as adjuncts to this operation.