Painting "shower panels" as a bathroom wall/ceiling

What is this crazy man talking about????? I know your thinking it! Here is the scoop. The vent fan works somewhat but isn't always used and rarely gets left on long enough to be truly effective. I would like to purchase and install a set of shower surround panels, those simple "plastic" sheets you can buy to make a shower/tub surround. Caulk the joints and install some crown moulding around the edge. The question is.....can I paint them to match the walls? The textured side would look nice but is for glue adhesion, and the shiny side looks a little questionable as to whether it would hold paint. If I scuffed it up with some sandpaper and painted it with BIN or Kilz primer and the the regular wall paint, would this be sufficient to adhere the paint despite the steam and water splash from the shower??

Reply to
kbremner
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Almost certainly it won't work. Assuming these are the fiberglass panels I'm used to, the gel coat (that's the color coat on the outside) has a very high wax content to allow it to come out of the mold easily. This is both a surface wax, and wax that is added to the gel coat when it is made. End result is that even if you sand it, there will be sufficient wax to prevent proper painting.

You can get treatment compounds and special epoxy that will usually work on this stuff, but realize that it is both expensive and difficult to work with.

I'd suggest getting something close to the desired color, and repaint the walls to match instead!

Reply to
PeterD

They are flat polystyrene sheets.

Reply to
kbremner

experiment with a scrap. try boat polymers.... use a pre-etch chemical./primer

Reply to
jloomis

Fiberglass surounds are made by pouring the color gel coat into the mold first and then fiberglass is laid onto the gel coat.

You will probably find that special colors are expensive however you should have 2 or 3 basic colors to choose from.

I also suggest you do not try to paint them unless you sand all of the gel coat off of the fiberglass and then prep them like you would any other fiberglass part. This is a serious amount of work and unless you have been in the autobody or boat repair business for 10 years it will look like garbage when your bright bathroom lights are on.

You can purchase gel coat in a can (not epoxy) and a color tint kit but you really need to know how to use it. I would suggest you don't even think about it...

Gel coat repair kits can fix a badly damaged tub though so keep that in mind if you guys need to repair your bathtub vs installing a new one.. won't look perfect but may pass the look test.

Put up some tile if you want something special

bob

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shower surround panels, those The question is.....can I paint them to match the walls?

Assuming these are the fiberglass panels I'm used to, the gel coat

Reply to
YouRepair.com

Painting plastic is risky enough, in a shower its extreme risk, XIM is THE plastic primer, contact and ask XIM for their opinion, I would not bother painting it

Reply to
ransley

snipped-for-privacy@beeline-online.net wrote the following:

Why not get some 'green board' sheetrock made for wet areas and use any paint you want?

Reply to
willshak

Probably the same reason he doesn't paint the walls to match the plastic!

Reply to
PeterD

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