Skellerns
For all your metal casting needs
PLAQUES
Plaques that dedicate, commemorate, acknowledge or brand with distinction and timeless elegance.
Skellerns bronze plaques are high quality custom designed plaques that have been used to commemorate a wide range of special occasions and places.
Whether the bronze plaque is to be on a headstone as a memorial, used a monument marker, designed for business branding signage, or as a personal tribute, or to commemorate a significant event, you can choose a bronze, aluminium or stainless steel plaque and it will always be a timeless point of remembrance. No other product matches the permanence and long-lasting elegance of an individually designed bronze plaque.
Plaques can be made in other metals such as steel and aluminium, however the traditional and most popular has been bronze.
Our Skellerns Plaques team have extensive experience with designing, repairing, restoring, conserving and preserving all types of plaques to make them look like new again, or if that is not possible anymore, then we can produce a replica plaque using new materials and fixings.
All of our bronze plaques or other metal plaques comply with the materials and fixings specified in the New Zealand Standard 4242:2018 – Headstones and Cemetery Monuments.
Our plaques team can cast almost any size of plaque in bronze, aluminium or stainless steel and offer 5 general styles for you to choose from to easily meet your plaque design requirements.
We ensure the highest casting quality of your plaque and to achieve this we do have a limitation on how small text can be, however the amount of text is only limited by the size of your plaque.
All graphics must by checked by you to ensure there are no intellectual property or copyright restrictions for using them before providing to our plaque designer. Our plaque designer will then check to ensure they are suitable for casting.
Once your plaque has been designed and your order has been confirmed, then you will be provided with a computer generated layout of the plaque for your prior approval, before the casting work begins. Then it is over to our experienced plaque manufacturing team to cast and finish the plaque to the required high standards of craftmanship and then arrange for its delivery, or complete any plaque mounting work if required.
View our gallery for plaque design inspiration
Choose the style for your plaque
Skellerns offer 5 Plaque styles for you to choose from for creating an elegant and long lasting memorial tribute or sign.
1. Standard Flat Plaque
This bronze plaque is suitable for any occasion or purpose.
Our Standard Flat Plaque is either rectangular or square in shape and can have either a single or double lined border with a choice of background colour of Black or Brown.
1. Standard Plaques (rectangle or square in shape)
2. Bevelled Edge Plaque
This bronze plaque is suitable of any purpose and best suited for horizontal placement.
Our Bevelled Edge plaque has sloping edges that gives it an elevated appearance with a single border containing small gaps that enable water to run off the face to preserve it.
2. Bevelled Edge Plaque
3. Flat Book Plaque
This bronze plaque portrays the appearance of a book and a story being told.Our Flat Book styled plaque is a flat rectangular plaque that has an outlined border in the shape of a book.
The bronze plaque is approximately 8mm in depth.
3. Flat book Plaque
4. Raised Book Plaque
This bronze plaque portrays the appearance of a book and a story being told.
Skellerns Raised Book or Loose Leaf plaque is cast to have its edges shaped with book pages layering up to the face of the plaque. It can be cast with front face format to have either 1 full page or 2 half pages.
This style of plaque has substantial depth of approximately 30mm.
Raised Book Plaque with Ceramic Photo
5. Non Standard Plaque
This plaque is any shape variation and is suitable for any purpose. It is often used as a decorative tribute.
Our Non Standard Plaques are all other plaques in a variety of different shapes.
Call our expert plaque designers to discuss your specific requirements.
Non Standard Plaque
Choose the metal for your plaque
1. Bronze
Bronze plaques are the traditional and popular choice for interior as well as exterior plaque applications. Although the finish of a bronze plaque will naturally patina over time, the material itself will never deteriorate.
Objects made from bronze have been submerged in seawater for over 3000 years and are still in excellent condition when discovered.
2. Aluminium
Aluminium plaques are more suited to indoor applications or where regular maintenance is possible and where budget or weight is a factor.
Aluminium plaques are cheaper than bronze plaques due the lower cost per kg of the aluminium alloy and the aluminium alloy is also lighter than either bronze or steel.
However, aluminium is not as corrosion resistant or physically resilient as bronze.
An aluminium plaque makes a great alternative when you can’t afford a bronze plaque, but still want a large plaque that is both lightweight and durable.
3. Stainless Steel
Stainless steel plaques are generally at the upper end of the quality and cost range due to the cost of the raw materials used in the casting and the time required to prepare, cast and finish compared to an aluminium or bronze plaque.
Choose a Border Style
Our bronze plaques include a single line border which is available at no extra cost on all ‘average’ sized plaques.
Some plaque border designs are not practical on small namestrips plaques that are under 5cm in height.
If your graphic border can be drawn with pen or within a computer application, it will almost always be able to be included in your plaque design.
Consider how to stylise your Text
Once you have chosen the wording, you will need to choose the font, size, format and layout for the plaques design. Consider what font styles and sizes will enhance the comprehension of the reader. They can include:
- LARGE and small text;
- Bold text for prominence;
- Font styles such as an elaborate wedding script style text for an elegant title line;
- Clear and spaced readable body text;
- italics to distinguish “comments or quotes”.
All of our memorial and tribute bronze plaques are custom made and we can accommodate virtually any content you may desire.
Take a look at some of our plaque designs to get inspired with what you can create and contact our design team to help you achieve it.
Including Graphics
Personalise and embellish you plaque by including graphics, a picture can say a thousand words, whether it be a logo, a favourite flower, an animal or any object of significant meaning.
Vector images work best for casting. If your graphic can be drawn with pen or within a computer application, it will almost always be able to be included in your plaque design. All graphics must by checked by you to ensure there are no intellectual property or copyright restrictions for using them before providing to our plaque designer.
Choosing a background colour
Prior to highlighting the letters the background is painted with a colour which assists in providing a contrast with the highlighted letters to make them stand out more.
As a standard, we offer you an option of two colours, however, you are able to choose any colour you like for the background for a customer price.
- Brown– The standard and most popular colour for bronze plaques.
- Black– Can be used for both bronze and aluminium plaques. Black will provide the best contrast for aluminium plaques.
- * Custom – Painted any colour of your choice
* We require you to provide us a physical example of the custom colour in order for us to match.
Choose a plaque background texture
Our creative bronze memorial plaques and headstones have been developed with alternative background textures or floors.
To give your plaque an enhanced or distinctive look, choose from: Sand, Stipple or Leatherette.
Available Polishing & Finishing Styles
Once the background of the bronze plaque has been painted, the surface areas (these are the raised letters or lines of artwork) are highlighted by sanding (flat areas) or buffing (sculpted areas) to create the elegant contrast of forms.
* Clear lacquer is our standard clear, protective coating. Unless otherwise specified, all plaques will receive clear lacquer protective coating.
Finishing & Polishing styles we offer:
Satin Bronze — The Natural metal colour with subtle horizontal grain lines.
Polished Bronze — The natural metal colour buffed to a high gloss, obtained by polishing with successively finer abrasives, then buffing with fine buffing compound.
Chrome Plated Bronze — The raised surface of the bronze plaque is polished to meet the polished bronze specifications. The background of the plaque remains in its “natural sandblast” state, providing contrast with the polished raised surface. The entire plaque is then electro-plated using a standard commercial copper/nickel/chrome plating process.
Protective Finish — In order to protect the natural, highlighted finish of a cast bronze plaque a Clear Protective Lacquer is added providing a low gloss appearance, this clear coating was developed to help ensure many years of carefree maintenance.
Lugs & Screws
These are used for a concealed mount where drilled lugs are added on the back of the plaque and screws used to hold in place for mounting to brick, stone or cement.
Flat backed plaques have no lugs or screw holes unless otherwise requested.
Counter Sink Screws
Countersink screws are the smallest plaque mounting option.
This method of mounting is typical for mounting on a park bench or memorial wall. The bronze plaque is mounted to surface using construction adhesive or by bolting from the rear. This option can be used on almost any surface. Wood screws can be used to fasten directly into timber or machine screws selected for mounting when fastening to a solid wall such as concrete.