Well I did our shower tray myself, about four weeks ago, and with some reservations, I'm delighted with the results in terms of cost/benefit ratio.
The house was built about mid 1960's and we've owned it since 1993. We suffer from extremely hard water here (mixture of chalk and limestone) and although it's rinsed scrupulously after every shower (at once least daily) and cleaned thoroughly weekly, SWMBO decided we needed a new one - "to go with the new tiles, those green ones are awfully old-fashioned you know!"). Yeah, I should co co - "I'll do a LOT for you my little lotus blossom, but re-tiling the shower/loo ain't one of 'em, sorry!"
Trips around the local DIY Emporia revealed ONLY rattle cans (which would NOT have been my 1st choice, but there you are).
Product is called "Dupli-Colour Ceramic Spray" and also says on the tin that it's an enamel spray. The tin is 400 ml and according to the tin, should cover 1 square metre. The cost per tin was nearly 16 Swiss Francs (about 15 quid) and I bought 2 cans, of which I have about half of one tin left.
Manufacturer is listed as MOTIP DUPLI GmbH; Kurt Vogelsang Strasse 6, D-74885 Hassmersheim, Germany.
Tel: +49 62 66 750.
www.motipdupli.com
The shower tray measures roughly 750 x 750 x 150 but CAUTION, I'm not sure whether or not it's really enamel "baked" onto cast iron or "just" ceramic. (The accompanying hand wash basin and loo bowl are both definitely ceramic so I assume the shower tray is too). But dunno.
With us, the shower tray is set into the floor with a tile border all around the 4 sides (and up the walls of course) so being spray cans, CAREFUL and thorough masking was definitely important.
As was thorough prep - careful cleaning then drying first, followed by rubbing down extensively - my little B&D Mouse sander, and an even smaller ROS were both definitely of some help here, but because of curved sides and corners, a LOT of careful hand sanding was needed too (hard work on yer 'ands n knees" at my age)!
I started off with 600 wet & dry (used dry) then worked up through 800, 1,000 and 2,000, the last 2 grades used wet.
As ever with rattle cans, prep of the can was important to ensure even flow and pressure. Dunk the whole tin into hand-hot water first, then rattle for 2 mins (time it!) then back into the hot water until ready to actually spray. After a coat, invert can and spray until no more colour comes out of the nozzle, then back into hot water until ready for next coat. The nozzles on Dupli-Colour rattle cans aren't too clever IMO (used then quite a bit), so one of those clip-on "trigger thingys" (that you see in the DIY places for about a fiver) are IMO a definite must - helps you get a constant pressure when spraying with "just" one finger, especially if the can isn't held vertical - which it obviously wasn't always in this case.
Spray from the usual 20 - 30 cm, and the tin says "dust dry" after 20 mins. Well "maybe"! Even with a first light dusting coat I found more like 30 mins was needed before I fancied touching it again - an advantage of plenty of masking is that there are plenty of "test here" areas!
After first coat I did total 3 more, sanding between each of the first 2 coats with 1000 grit only (dry - but DO vacuum and dust off thoroughly afterwards); and with 1,000 then 2,000 grits before the last coat (both used wet - again thorough cleaning and drying each time), and I spread the whole job over 2 days, just to allow for proper curing of the paint (NOTHING said on the tin)!
The coverage is "not too bad", but unfortunately I got one "curtain" (run) around one shower edge which required remedial action - one of the problems of rattle cans is that they do NOT work well (with constant pressure) unless the can is held pretty much upright all the time. Can't always do that working on the floor and spraying into the "front" corner just under yer nose! As said, I couldn't find a brush-on product which would have been my preference.
And BTW, the smell is VERY powerful and "chemically," to the extent that it was making my eyes water and nose run (even with a decent mask and visor) - quite a confined space. Even though it was cold and snow outside (15 deg C quoted on tin as min working temp), as soon as about 30 mins elapsed I opened the (single) window wide and left it open for an hour or so each time - on one day, when it was snowing, running a fan heater in there as well to be sure of maintaining 15 deg!!!!
Also, I did not use the shower for a further 3 days after the final coat - again, nothing on the tin about that, but judging from the smell, some sort of quite nasty chemicals are definitely involved so I wanted to allow plenty of final curing/solvent evaporation time.
As said, I wouldn't have chosen rattle cans if I could have found something else (I could even have used my "coarse" airbrush without the typical rattle can problems I actually experienced, but couldn't find anything in "liquid" form to put in it).
Is the shower as good as new? No, not really, but it HAS completely covered all the brown/grey dis-coloured areas, it's nice and smooth, and it's now a very nice and even "snow white" colour overall.
Is it as good as taking the shower try out and getting it done professionally? I very much doubt it. But against that, not too much hassle (apart from back & knee ache!) and for an total outlay of less than 40 quid equivalent (ignoring my time) it has certainly significantly improved both the appearance and the "smooth feel" underfoot.
I don't know (didn't look) for a company to come on site to do it for me. In Switzerland it would be "a lot"!
How long will it last? Dunno. Finished it about a month back, and "so far so good"!
Ask me again in 10 years!
HTH
