I wasn't directly involved in the furniture side of things, but they'd occasionally bring by pieces for repair since we had a fully-equipped shop to handle our equipment rental business.

One of the more common repairs, was to broken dining sets. The decorative wrought iron chair backs and legs took a beating, and needed welding. Even though the parts were fairly stout, they were often joined only by several small tack welds. Once the parts were cleaned up with a scotchbrite pad or sandpaper, they were either MIG welded, or gas welded if the parts were smaller. While the metal was still pretty hot after welding, the parts were spritzed with flat black spray paint. The heat crinkled the first coat of paint, and the texture/finish could be manipulated fairly easily with some practice.

The repairs were nearly invisible when done. If you can find something of similar size and density to the parts you're refinishing, you can practice a bit before committing to anything. Heat the pieces up with a propane torch or something similar, and fog on a coat of paint while the metal is still hot. If the metal is too hot, the paint will bubble and crinkle too much.....just experiment a little.