Breaking Cast-Iron Bath

I've always used a heavy lump hammer, put a sacking or similar along the bottom to prevent the enamel splintering in all directions, then whollop it , once started they go fairly easily, but it's warm work. Be carefull as the enamel splinters and the broken cast iron can be very sharp, so best to wear gloves when carrying the bits out.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Stephen Mawson" saying something like:

Goggles a must - the flying shards of enamel are razor sharp. Lump or sledgehammer, after anglegrinding a slot in the top edge to weaken it, I found was the way to go.

ear defenders, sledge, and hit it as if your life depended on it.

once its started, its easier

Yup, seconded (esp. about protection - it's as sharp as glass and the small dust-sized particles can easily get in your eyes). I found it was easier to hit the insides of the bath, starting at the point where the base starts to curve up into the walls. A cold chisel might also be handy to start the fractures. After you get some crakcs going it gets easier. It's also very noisy and the pieces you get left with are quite heavy - you'll need something pretty substantial to transport the debris.

Why not have it resurfaced? Dunno where you are but we used this guy

angle-grinder.

Stephen,

There was a thread on this theme a few weeks ago, and I'll repeat the advice I gave then: drill a hole through the bath to create a 'stress riser' then wack it with a club hammer on the hole - bigger is better.

AWEM

When I did it a few years ago the shock from the hammer made my hands go numb for a few days. Best to wear gloves during during the operation too!

But as you say a lump hammer does work if you persevere.

Another Dave

Tsk, remember the last discussion :-)

Cast iron is strong in compression - but weak in tension.

Angle grind if possible a horizontal slot in the side higher up, and a slot in the bottom. Alternatively scratch the enamel away (pointed cold chisel), then drill with something like a HSS-G or whatever is good on cast iron. Hit the bottom so as to create a tension load so the slots can no propogate into cracks.

Frankly I am not sure a club hammer is the best thing, I think one of those hexagonal road bars is probably better because it has both small area, fantastic kinetic energy, long duration impulse rather than "bounce off". You would need a short one unless you want to simultaneously do the ceiling at the same time.

You are undoubtedly correct (I did Metallurgy at Sheffield University back in the early sixties) :-(

However I did not have:

a. An angle grinder b. A pointed cold chisel c. An HSS-G drill d. A hexagonal road bar

I did have a friend with a club hammer so that's what I went with.

Who says a university education is wasted?

Another Dave

Cast iron was used in the old days, there are a lot of pressed steel baths around now. If it doesn't shatter in response to a hefty belt then it's probably steel.

And the bigger the hammer the better.

One big bash with a sledge hammer and the bath is broken. The rest is easy with a lump hammer.

Cheers

Adam

Simple!, Just wait till paddy is digging the road up again and slip him a few quid and a gallon of the black stuff, and I'm sure you'd get a road drill in most bathrooms;)...

It requires a good hiding with a large hammer...wear ear defenders and goggles, prevention of splitting of ear drums and eyeballs respectively

University

I'd lend the o/p (my big bruvver) a road drill if he so desires, but it's almost a heavy to get up the stairs as the bath is to come down !!!!

AWEM

That's a good point. If you hit it, and it bends, it ain't cast iron.

Is it really not worth anything to an architectural salvage place?

Andy

We recently got rid of a cast iron bath from the upstairs bathroom (ex-residence for the toy duck, now homeless) by chucking it out in the front. Well, not quite chucking - it took four men to lift it down the stairs carefuly in one piece and avoid scraping newly replastered walls.

So that evening it was standing out in full display of the whole street.

There were three knocks at the door 'here man, that bath - can I be havin it?' which we politely turned down so we could give the option to people we knew. Our decorating guys weren't interested - their vehicle weight limits, distance of travel and all that.

Then we hit on the great brainwave of filling the bath with the all the rubbish (tiles, wood, broken sink china) that we were also throwing - and so the newly offered deal was 'if you get rid of all this, ye can have the bath, gratis'

It was the third caller the following morning that picked it _all_ up, and neighbouring streets don't seem littered with the crummy stuff that was in the bath, so I can assume the terms of the deal were followed through.

That's six individual callers in the space of about 8 hours of daylight to show interest in this scrap iron. Wow.

Of course, I've now probably broken some crazy law against giving junk to a non-licensed waste contractor :-(

Dennis will have something to say about that.

My OH used a lump hammer on ours. He is a plumber by trade, so I guess he knew what was what on that. It took him about five cracks at it . One thing I will say though, don't put it down the tip. Take it to the scrap merchant. OH got £20 for ours ( scrap is by weight apparently). I know because he gave me the money after he had done it.

You sound like my OH! There comes a point in life where one would like a NEW bath, not a re vamped one. I know this because it has taken me 15 years and upteen arguments to get my lovely new one. ( did have a rubbish avacado version from the 1970's, although I have this odd suspicion that was actually a n older re enamaled job. OH said not, I reckon it possibly was.