tub repair

Anyone have any idea where I can purchase / learn about / tub repair. I'm not interested in the kits sold by local hardware stores, but by what the professional tub repair people use.

Reply to
the guy upstairs
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Also do a google search on "tub repair" for others.

Reply to
Dennis M. Marks

the guy upstairs verbositized:

If your talking about fiberglass, see gel coatings. If your talking about porcelain, see hot enamel resurfacing. If your tub is cultured, forget it! Cheaper to replace.

TTUL Gary

Reply to
Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr.

I just had my tub refinished. The tub was not the cast iron/porcelain but what they sell today (18 yrs. ago actually) - it has a metal base and is covered in something that looks like porcelain.

He had to sand off the bad places then he sprayed it with some kind of primer - then he followed with another kind of spray on stuff. He called it polymer I think...I know it was poly something and it wasn't hot and it wasn't just plain paint. It had to sit three days to cure.

Anyway it looks real good. The alternative was replace tub and that meant replacing a perfectly good tile job. Would have cost a lot of money.

Dorothy

Reply to
Dorot29701

Hi Dorothy

Sounds like an epoxy based enamel. Should hold up just about as long as the hot stuff with no problems. That what we used to repair culture marble vanity sinks as the hot stuff would melt the plastic finish around the repair and it was worse off than before we started.

TTUL Gary

Reply to
Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr.

Thank yoy all. That was exactly what I've been looking for. I just retired and am looking for somethign to do. You have all been a great help.

Reply to
the guy upstairs

Hi Guy

Almost everyone has a cultured marble vanity these days, and they ALWAYS self-destruct around the drain area.

Trouble is, new tops only cost about 75 bucks and up.

If you wanted to specialize in doing just these, you won't have all the aggrivation you do as in the reglazing business, and far less competition.

All you need is a fist sized orbital sander with a convex sanding head, a grease pencil, two vinyl pails, and optionally a couple of wrenches to make the work easier.

I'll be glad to fill you in on how it's done if you post back here again, I check this newsgroup every day.

TTUL Gary

Reply to
Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr.

Reply to
the guy upstairs

Hi Guy

Because epoxy finish is not cheap we don't want to waste any by mixing too much, so we use the following steps.

  1. Fill basin with water to an aesthetic visual height. (This can be a pool only an inch deep to just above the blemishes or the whole basin can be filled with water.)
  2. Using your grease pencil make a few marks or draw a ring just at the water level. (This is to determine a level finish line.)
  3. Drain the water from the bowl and dry.
  4. Place masking tape about 3 layers thick on the marks or line.
  5. Loosen or remove P-Trap for access to drain tailpiece.
  6. Remove pop-up assembly from tailpiece or simply remove pop-up lever assembly from back and plug hole with dowel. (We usually wrap a couple of turns of electrical tape on the dowel so that it fits snug.)(Reason: We don't want epoxy in this port or on the threads here.)
  7. Optionally, tape chrome outlet. (If not taped it will become the color of the epoxy, which is how we usually do it.)
  8. Before sanding basin we connect a shop vac to the tailpiece outlet to collect sanding dust.
  9. Using a convex faced orbital sander we first sand the rough plastic with 250 grip wet dry sandpaper, then when cracks are cleared up we switch to 400 grit wet dry sandpaper for the final smoothing.
  10. On occasion we will do a little hand sanding, but not often.
  11. Remove shop vac and hang a small bucket under the tailpiece. (It can hang from the pop-up threaded fitting.)
  12. Using a cotton rag and 91% alcohol wipe out the inside of the basin.
  13. It takes about 4 ounces of epoxy to do a shallow resurfacing and about 8 to 10 ounces to do the whole basin. We use a paper cup (not styrofoam as it will melt) to mix the two part enamel. We try to match the base color as closely as possible or go with snow white epoxy finish as the alternative.
  14. The epoxy is poured into the basin starting at the masking tape and allowed to drain out the drain into the waste bucket. With a little practice you will quickly learn how much to pour so as not to waste too much. Some will puddle by the drain, this is normal. (After it hardens you won't have water standing in the sink like you used to before refinishing.)
  15. Trying to match the translucent marbling with opaque epoxy is nearly impossible. But if you want to try it, use some epoxy about 2 shades darker of what you have left and a feather to add some marbling effect to the finish. But honestly, a solid color looks fine in the majority of cases. Almost like a separate bowl and top were made that way.
  16. As soon as the epoxy just begins to set up and harden, remove the masking tape slowly pulling upward. (This will allow the taped edge to settle and smoothen out.)
  17. Then, before the epoxy sets up too hard, you want to remove the dowel from the pop-up port. (You WANT to do this at this time so it does not become epoxied into the pop-up port.)
  18. Finally, remove your catch pail and trim any hanging drips from the tailpiece.
  19. I now usually clean up, put my tools (except the wrenches) away giving time for the epoxy to really harden well before reinstalling the pop-up assembly and P-Trap. (You can really mess up a nice job if you allow the tailpiece to twist while reinstalling the compression fittings on the P-Trap, so be careful about doing this, or if you can, wait an hour before installing the P-Trap.
  20. A coat of gel-gloss polish over the existing part of the basin helps to restore the gloss so it blends closer to the refinished surface shine. The sink can normally be used after 1 hour.

Notes: If you use a vinyl bucket, the epoxy can usually be peeled from it. Instead of paper cups, you could use vinyl, but they are often too rigid and small to be able to peel the epoxy, so we normally use paper cups.

Epoxy enamel is fairly thick to start with, we have never had to place a second coat in a standard bathroom sink. However, if you attempt to recolor porcelain wall fixtures, often two coats will be required.

If you are coating something that will normally be filled with water all the time, let the epoxy dry at least 24 hours before filling the device.

We normally replace the nylon compression fittings when reglazing vanity sinks.

Any palm sized orbital sander can be turned into a convex faced sander by building up the foam pad with decreasing sized thin hi-density foam pads. The commercial sander has a solid block of foam covered by a piece of rubber similar to an old car innertube but made for the sander. The curvature of the sander face is not great, just enough to work on the curved surfaces inside of a sink basin. Before we had these sanders, we used softball size rubber balls to hold the sandpaper and did the sanding by hand.

On the occasion that you get a ripple run in the paint, a piece of masking tape layed on the run and quickly pulled up will often eliminate it while the epoxy is still flowing.

The real pain is when the sink was not clean enough and some soap remained in the area where a crack was and the epoxy avoids this area like the plague. When we hit this, we would simply wipe the avoided area with acetone, and repour a little more epoxy from the taped area so it now flows across this area. BUT, this has to be done BEFORE the epoxy begins to set, preferably while it is still in the flow stage of the operation. So keep your eye open for one of these areas. If you miss it, it's no big deal, just clean it as mentioned then recoat the whole sink again to it comes out uniformly smooth.

There will be times when nothing seems to go right and everything goes wrong. Don't worry, just let the epoxy harden for 24 hours, then lightly sand and clean the basin and do it over again and it should take this time with no problems since it now has an epoxy base. I have rarely hit the nothing seems to go right, but the times I have, it has been sinks made of structured polycarbonate, which are fairly rare to run across.

The surface can be redone without removing the P-Trap, but requires a wax plug and siphon that connects to a sealed catch can then to the vacuum. The chances of messing up a great job using this method is increased exponentially because you are working around still wet enamel.

Doing flat surfaces and fixtures requires the building of a trough at the bottom and a catch basin. Royal mess if there is a leak in your trough assembly or you overflow your catch basin. We had to use this method to solar coat existing store windows to protect displays from sun damage.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask!

TTUL Gary

the guy upstairs verbositized:

Reply to
Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr.

Gary, I really want to thank you for all the time you spent on your posting. It is a mountain of work and much more than I had expected. I'm going to take my time and based on what you wrote, learn how to do this thing.

Again, thanks a lot.

Guy.

Reply to
the guy upstairs

Hi Guy

Of any recoating project in bathrooms, it is one of the easiest. Sounds a lot harder than it really is once you get the hang of it. I just tried to cover every single step and the what if's that you would rarely encounter very often.

It's like trying to paint trim if someone used silicone caulk and your working with latex paint, if you catch my drift. Latex paint will not stick to silicone caulking!

There is an easier way too, but wastes products. Quick and easy though. Close the drain, fill with Acetone to just above the cracks and let sit for 15 minutes. Drain the acetone and let dry, about 5 minutes. Remove the pop-up, install wax plug to just under flush with sink outlet. Pour in epoxy enamel and let sit 2 minutes, pop the wax plug. The acetone in the trap will dilute the epoxy so it won't set in the drainpipe. In 15 minutes or so run hot water in the sink to wash out the trap. If you still see lines where the cracks used to be, pour about 4 ounces of acetone in the trap trying not to get any on the epoxy finish and use another wax plug and repeat the epoxy enamel part again. This should make it thick enough you no longer see any cracks or lines from them.

I don't recommend this method, but it works OK for shallow repairs.

TTUL Gary

Reply to
Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr.

Reply to
the guy upstairs

the guy upstairs verbositized:

25+ years of doing home renovations from skid row to historic mansions! Some things you just pick up by seeing what products are available to do what with. Other things you just learn by trying different approaches to similar problems in places where it really doesn't matter if it's not perfect, such as in a rental house. When it was available, I made heavy use of Targinol (pour chip flooring) only I eliminated the chips and added whatever I wanted for the base. I've used everything from brown paper sacks which looked like flagstone when finished, to 45s and LP records in rec rooms.

To repair the proprietary part of lower door and window frames that rotted out, we would use polyester resin to rebuild the rotted out areas using fiberglass and polyester until solid so it would never deteriorate again. Doing these types of repair does have a fairly large learning curve in order to master it.

A feat that I had to do quite often was to put a 5 foot bathtub into a

4 foot space after reducing that space down to 3-1/2 feet to cover the exposed 6 inch plumbing vents. Here is an example:
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for the .html and open it from the index, that will pull everything together into one document for you.

Nothing is impossible, it just takes figuring out a way to do it is all! EXCEPT, taking artist drawings and turning them into solid objects. Too many ways to fool the eye! Meaning it is possible to draw on paper what is impossible to exist in 3D.

TTUL Gary

Reply to
Gary V. Deutschmann, Sr.

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