W/basin bath repair

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

I think it was asked in here - someone looking for a suitable material to fix a chipped w/basin and one of the suggestions was this stuff -

I asked if might be suitable for a chip in a white enamelled pressed steel bath. It was suggested that it was, so I ordered some, which arrived yesterday and I used it yesterday.

It worked and was much better than I expected. It had set up incredibly hard by this morning. The instructions though, are a very poor translation and took several readings to get the full jest of it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

...gist...?

Looks like a white filled *polyester* resin.

Essentially nicer looking car body filler.

As I said, 'Milliput' is the *epoxy* equivalent.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

I have used the standard milliput before and car body filler, this was much, much finer than both of those. It ran almost like a gloss oil paint and produced a shiny surface if just allowed to set - though it seems to advise laying some (provided) plastic on top, whilst it set, I didn't use it.

I deliberately smudged some onto a chrome pipe, just to see how well it stuck. It is certainly much tougher than gloss paint to remove, it will need to be 'chiselled off'.

I needed it for an enamelled pressed steel bath, where I had drilled a hole to allow a pipe to pass through (bad idea). It had gradually rusted out from the hole over the years and I had repaired it once already with phosphoric acid and white car touch up paint, from my old Granada.

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is down to the quality of the filler of course

It ran almost like a gloss oil

[RJH]

I tried to buy some off the back of the earlier thread. Seller sent me a different product - single tube and 10ml. Promised to send me the correct version Monday. I'll report back then ;-)

[Nick Odell]

I bought the same product and finally found the tuits to use it last week. I really don't care whether it is epoxy or polyester: if you follow the instructions carefully it works well.

Just a few comments:

I did a practice run on a piece of broken crockery and I am glad that I did because I learned a lot about its characteristics that way.

Accurate measurement of the two components seems to be important: my proto-son-in-law used it, did it in a rush and made a mess of his bath repair whilst I used an electronic balance to measure the parts more exactly.

I was annoyed to discover that the so-called PTFE label which is supposed to be cut to surround the chip before you fill it was actually just ordinary paper and the clear film that is not supposed to stick to the filler did actually stick to the filler. But once you know this you can work round it.

Would I use it again? Hopefully the filled holes in the enamel will stay filled and nobody will chip the bath again and I won't have to!

Nick

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Yes well, I noticed a couple of chips in my bath near the plug hole surround, but seeing as the nice shiny glaze has now worn away on all but the seldom wet portions, I'm thinking a new bathroom might be the next big spend. Glaze lasts only so long even on an enamelled steel bath, and this has lasted over 50 years so I guess its entitled to get dull due, most probably to minute scratches due to having to remove lime scale from the hard water.

Such is life. Brian