Articles for automotive, manufacturing and industrial applications including shafts or tubes used, for example, as golf club shafts, ski and hiking poles, fishing rods or bicycle frames, skate blades and snowboards are at least partially electroplated with fine-grained layers of selected metallic materials. Parts with complex geometry can be coated as well. Alternatively, articles such as conical or cylindrical golf club shafts, hiking pole shafts or fishing pole sections, plates or foils and the like can also be electroformed of fine-grained metallic materials on a suitable mandrel or temporary substrate to produce strong, ductile, lightweight components exhibiting a high coefficient of restitution and a high stiffness for use in numerous applications including sporting goods.