what to use to hold bath MDF side panel on?

[jkn]

Hi All our bath has a (shaped & vinyl covered) MDF side panel. The panel has to be a couple of inches off the floor to fit (it's a high bath). My previous attempts to fashion a removable fastening have been less that satisfactory, and I'm looking for an alternative.

IIRC the bath frame originally came with either magnets or velcro, both of which were useless. I have ended up with small metal brackets fitted to the lower frame, with the panel sitting on this. This is sort-of OK, but the panel does have a tendancy to slip off the brackets.

Any thoughts about a better alternative, with no fixings visible on the outer surface?

Thanks J^n

[newshound]

I'm a big fan of these

OK you will have to have four small stainless screws going through each corner to hold the magnets on to the panel, but you won't really notice them. With MDF you could countersink and fill the holes although the vinyl might make it difficult. The nuts can sit in the countersink in the magnet, and then the magnets will fix firmly to any suitable piece of mild steel.

[Tim Streater]

Magnets if done properly are not useless. In our redone bathroom magnets are what chappie used and thy've given us no trouble.

[Andy Burns]

Either stronger magnets, or

[Brian Gaff]

I plump for some of those super powerful magnets glued in place and a metal strip.

If you have no wiggle room sideways, then there is little other than spring clips or magnets. Do not like Velcro, the glue on stuff falls off. Brian

[jkn]

Took me a while, but I finally got around to it...

I ended up taking up Andy Burns' suggestion, and using (Type 2) Button-fix fittings. Here follows a brief report.

They are quite well made but in this particular instance a bit fiddly to use. The main downsides:

- Some of the framing parts I was attaching the 'button' to flexed a bit; this meant that the clip wouldn't properly lock. I ended up having to reinforce the frame a bit. Not the fixings fault, but a bit annoying.

- You have to be pretty accurate when drilling the holes for the brackets; they do have a decent strength and obvious 'snap' but the downside of this is that there is little room for play. Even with the marking pieces (pretty essential in most cases, I'd have thought) I had to have a couple of goes.

Would I use them again? probably ... but I would bear in mind these aspects.

Thanks for the suggestions in any case

J^n

[Andy Burns]

AFAIK, they do sell a tool to mark the position of the second part

[jkn]

Yeah, even with that. Mainly because with a large area such as a bath panel, it is hard to hold it in a predefined place whilst you are trying to press against the marking pins.

[Jim K..]

Keku clips?