Doing a quick bathroom freshen up and the old cast iron bath is in a bit of a mess. I'm thinking on giving it a sand and repainting it - roller/brush, not spray paint. A professional re-paint is around £300-£600 so not what we're looking to do. In all likelihood the bath will be torn out in a few years time so this needs to be a DIY job. Am I going to regret this choice, any tips appreciated.
Yeah. It was better than what we started with but not perfect. Suspect better preparation would have improved things.
We didn't bother. An acrylic bath doesn't lose the heat in the bath water as quickly. You can get lots of bath styles and 10 years+ guarantees. Choose a well-made one, particularly if free-standing, to avoid flex
Ours picked up a chip inside. Didn't want to bin it and couldn't be bothered to paint the whole thing so I sanded and painted an area. It's noticeable but totally functional. Hasn't deteriorated in the five years or so since I did it. As long as you don't need it to be pristine a DIY job should be fine and sounds sensible
Ours had a rust blister/void - filled it with Milliput white epoxy, been fine since.
I managed to strip the enamel from mine somewhat accidentally when I filled it with citric acid to de-rust some bike parts 😀
Fortunately we were replacing it anyway, but I was surprised it was so effective.
You can do spot repairs. Coatings of the type mentioned above. There are probably professionals out there who'll do a good colour match for you. A full re-enamel is probably not worth it. When we looked they didn't even guarantee it wouldn't be destroyed.
We don't tend to use the bath so replaced it with a modern one. They look nice but we found the cast iron one a pain. A proper shower was better. And a cheaper batch worked better - cast iron is a massive heat sink so the water going in had to be scolding to get the thing tepid.
My mum spent ages reemameling the 100 year old one in our house as a kid.
It looked a lot of work. It was better, but not perfect. It lasted for years until it got swapped for a shower.
Used a Tubby re enameling kit a few years back and it turned out better than I expected. As with most things it's all in the prep. You won't achieve a perfectly smooth finish (slightly orange peely) but perfectly acceptable.
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://tubbydiy.com/&ved=2ahUKEwiEyOKwvuL7AhUJZsAKHVOMBVIQFnoECA0QAQ&usg=AOvVaw2Tej_QrkptZQVs9XvPQdzZ