Standard Bathtub Kit

OK - let me start by saying that this roll on kit is very easy to execute if you FOLLOW the directions to the letter (this review is specifically for the roll on kit - not the pour on kit). Here are some tips - I watched about 12 videos and read several threads on this product and here's what I did. I have a porcelain tub (I only did the tub - the tile surround is still in excellent condition) that had previously been spray coated by a "professional" but it started to chip after about 3 years. I wasn't paying that kind of money again, so I decided to do it myself and give it the best possible effort I could! 1. Prep work. This is absolutely the key to an outstanding result. I cannot stress this enough. - scrape every last scrap and sticky bit of your silicone caulk off the tub, otherwise the product will pull away and "pool". The pooling happened to me, but it was covered once the caulk was redone. - sand. sand it all. - use the toilet bowl cleaner and a magic eraser to get all the soap scum, grime, and residue off the tub AFTER you sand. - sand again. I promise you it will be worth it. - use the toilet bowl cleaner again with a scrubby sponge. - wipe down with lint free paper towels and 91% isopropyl alcohol to get the cleanest, most grit-free surface you can get. 2. Get yourself an palm sized orbital sander. Also get yourself an oscillating tool that has the triangle "finger sander" attachment. Get at least 5-8 discs and at least 10 triangles. You will thank me later. 3. That 10 minute mixing time they mention? DO IT. And don't cheat. Do it for even longer than they recommend. And do it AGAIN in between pouring the product into your mini roller tray. 4. You WILL use about 6-8 4" foam rollers. Do yourself a favor and get 2 handles so you have one ready to go when one roller starts to disintegrate and have a spouse or friend take the used on and put a fresh roller on for you while you work. Get a mini roller tray designed for 4" rollers. Line it with Press & Seal so when you're done you can just peel it out of the tray and toss it. Also, get yourself a box of disposable nitrile gloves. 5. Don't be discouraged by how thick the product is or how you can still see through the first coat. This will change after the second coat. 6. It doesn't seem like a lot of product, but I still had about 1/8 of the container left after the first and second coats. A little does actually go a long way, and repeatedly rolling over the same spot doesn't actually build up the layers, so don't bother trying LOL 7. Lastly - plan on this taking WAY LONGER than the instructions indicate. It took me about 5 hours to do the prep work, and only about an hour to put the first coat on. And, plan on not being able to use your shower for at least 4 days: - Monday was start day; finished with first coat around 1pm. Not dry that evening for second coat. - Tuesday was day 2; second coat finished around 10am. Instructions say to wait 24 hours before recaulking. - Wednesday was day 3; recaulked the tub around 10am. - Thursday was day 4; tub/shower ready to use but we gave it another day to give everything some extra time to cure. - Friday - reinstalled fixtures for tub spout, drain, overflow (all new) - tub/shower ready to go! Hope this is helpful if you are deciding whether or not to try it out. I'm pretty handy, and a decent painter, so I treated it like any other painting project. If I could have had someone do all the prep work for me, well, that would have made this so much easier!! The photo is the "after" (but before we put the fixtures back on or recaulked). Of course I forgot to take a "before".

I wanted to try my hand at restoring an at least 70 year old ceramic tub which had the coating worn off on the bottom with lots of rusting and stains. I liked the idea of this product due to the lesser amount of harmful chemicals and smells that other products carry. As I would be doing this near the winter time, I wouldn’t be able to air out the bathroom the way I would in the summer and didn’t want to purchase something with an awful smell. This was my first time doing this and I am not a professional. I watched the video a few times of how to apply this kit. I followed the instructions. It’s not hard, more nerve racking than anything as I didn’t want to mess anything up. It looks like a brand new tub now. It is so shiny, dried into a hard coating and had hardly any smell other than a slight paint smell when applying. I would highly recommend this product!

A total shame this product was not as advertised after spending 4 days of homework, arduous prep, & application. The product dried to a nice glossy finish - unfortunately that was IVORY & not the WHITE I ordered. IF YOU ORDERED WHITE & YOUR PART B APPEARS NEARLY ORANGE THEN STOP & CONTACT THE SELLER!! I had not used this product before & the hardener in all 4 sets (parts A & B pairs) was the same orange color - mixing looked like a caramel sundae. I wondered how it could finish as true white & my husband asked what was wrong with it, but we are on a deadline to get our house on the market so had to forge ahead. After emailing the seller with questions after the fact I was told this discoloration was due to oxidation. I told them that is strange for a closed bottle of product that is supposed to have a 2 year shelf life. The pros: I can say the dried finish looks great, & online reviews say it is the most durable finish for this purpose. The cons: it cost me $216 for a double set of kits to cover our free standing shower; prep is extensive & takes much longer than described if you are new to this; enclosed directions lacked crucial information for application. The biggest issue there is the self-leveling agent & drying time. I watched the company's more extensive FAQ video after the fact since was looking for how soon I needed to remove the edge taping done during prep. There I found out that the SELF LEVELING AGENT IN THE PRODUCT EVAPORATES OUT AFTER 1 HOUR SO THERE IS A TICKING CLOCK ON THE PRODUCT AFTER MIXING. I took my time & went slowly only to see my orange peel finish on the front of my shower pan spread out like a zombie apocalypse hit it. That was the last area covered as I worked my way out of the shower. I simply could have left 1/2 the batch in the covered jar as I applied the first 1/2. Instead I had to spend a 1/2 hour trying to fix it after letting the product get sticky enough that it wouldn't run. Other reviews noted that people did touch ups well after initial completion. Just know that it may work well on the bottom of your tub/shower since gravity will do the leveling for you, but may not be effective for the vertical surfaces. So my ratings explained: Overall = 1 since this is the most expensive product available for this purpose & it has totally messed up my black/white design in which all other elements are already purchased; Easy To Use = 3 since prep is horrible but the product itself is easy enough to roll on evenly if you have any experience doing regular painting Durability = unrated since the shower is still unused & way too early to know Drying Power = 5 since drying time was consistent with description & has hardened to a nice finish

Update: I do have to deduct a star for one thing that we found. This stuff stains surprisingly easy and is really hard to clean. My daughters primarily use this shower and they have a lot of colorful bath and body products such as gel sugar scrubs and shampoos. If they leave a small amount on the tub after they get out. It will stain the white tub. It is possible to get it out, but it requires a lot of scrubbing. A regular bleach spray wouldn't work. I used a toilet bowel cleaner gel with bleach and soaked the area for about 15 minutes and then used a magic eraser. Even then it took a while, but that's the only thing that worked for me. Instructed the kids to rinse out the tub after every use. Still no chips though and product is holding strong. I don't tend to write lengthy reviews. However, I was so impressed with this product that I felt like I had to give anybody thinking about utilizing this, some tricks to make it go smooth. I am not a professional by any means, but I am pretty good at completing most small non complicated projects around the house. I looked at quite a few options for similar products and this stood out for me after watching several professional remodelers test different products. This seemed the most durable while still being user friendly. Tip #1 The prep work is the key. This product comes with detailed instructions on what to use to prep the surface you are using it for. In my case it was a bathtub. Put the majority of your time into the prep. I actually did a few extra steps as well to make sure that the application looked good. After cleaning the tub I scrubbed the surface with steel wool throughout the whole tub to really get off any stuck on soap scum. Make sure you sand the tub really well too. I used a rotary drill sand paper attachment and with 240 the paper wears out really fast. I had to use about 4 sheets of it. Tip #2 - Have small metal tweezers available or a metal putty knife. Even though I put several hours into the prep, your initial coat will still have some small imperfections. They kind of look like the coat will avoid certain areas like grease and water mixed. You can take the putty knife and scrape the area a bit and reapply with the roller. This typically will help remove those spots. DONT dab it with a paper towel. This stuff is sticky and you will leave paper residue and it is very hard to get out. The tweezers are useful for hair. Inevitably as I was applying this stuff a small arm hair or something would fall into the tub. Huge pain in the butt to get out. Tweezers are a good option to remove this and only disrupt a small area. You could wear a hair net and long sleeves too. Not a bad option. Tip #3 - Don't do the second coat after 3 hours. I put a light coat on for the first coat it still wasn't dry after 3 hours. Part of that reason is I checked on it every 20 minutes after the first coat to clean up any drips or fix small problem areas. I would plan on doing that for at least the first 2 hours if you want the coat to look really good. Tip #4 - Remove the drain for the tub and just replace it. I tried to tape it off and it came out pretty decent, but this stuff is crazy strong. After it cured and I was removing tape there were some sections I had to scrape out with a razor blade and even that took a while. Much easier to just remove the drain, roll out the area, and then replace it with a shiny new one. Once I did the first coat. The second coat was much easier. I did a thicker coat and didn't have to worry about imperfections as much. I can say the tub came out fantastic. I can't speak to the durability yet, but based off my drain issue I can say that it is really strong stuff. One thing I forgot to mention. I had some small pits in the tub as well. I used JB Waterweld putty and filled in the holes level to the tub surface. Let it cure completely and this stuff will cover it no problem. You will never even know the defect was there.

This works very well on older stained and discolored fiberglass tubs. Be sure to remove the drain attachment first for professional results and do not apply of the room is warm - it will set quick. It makes a very hard finish that looks great. Instead of scrubbing bubbles as recommended by the manufacturer, use Dawn platinum plus spray and a soft sponge to clean it- works very well with much less scrubbing required.

I used Ekopel Roll On to restore a 75-year-old porcelain bathtub. This is an amazing product with almost no smell. Included in the package is an instruction sheet. Follow the instructions but ignore the time estimates, which are unrealistically fast — e.g., 45 minutes to prep and clean the tub, 30 minutes to prep the surrounding area. I estimate I spent between 20 and 25 hours prep time before applying Ekopel, including caulk removal, sanding the tub with both actual and liquid sandpaper, scrubbing with Soft Scrub, and wiping down with acetone. Meticulous preparation is key to a successful outcome, since ANY dirt will cause poor adhesion, fish-eyes, and various other misfortunes in a parade of horribles. One other PRO TIP from the instruction sheet I would strongly recommend you ignore: “Adding a splash of acetone will make the application easier.” Try immersing a foam roller in acetone and watch what happens. It dissolves into mush in a matter of seconds; even a small amount of acetone in the mix will only ensure that microscopic bits of your foam roller land up as tiny bumps on your finished bathtub. I also didn’t use water in the mix either. I took a piece of cardboard and drew a circle around the cap of the smaller bottle, then cut out a hole with an exacta knife. When it comes time to mix the two bottles, simply put your cardboard on the opening of the small bottle, and turn it upside down, using the cardboard as a support on the large bottle. Wait five minutes and the small bottle will be completely empty, with no dilution of the paint mixture. That said, this is a fantastic product made by a company with the pretty much the best customer support I’ve ever come across. Just take your time doing the prep work and make sure that when it comes time (finally)to apply the Ekopel, the area is well-lit and at the right temperature, and that you have spare rollers and paint tray liners readily to hand. You can do this! Good luck.

Watched the video directions. Scrubbed, sanded, washed with toilet bowl cleaner. Mixed for 15 mins and applied the primer coat which went one pretty smoothly and seemed to cover evenly. Let it dry for 5 hours. Mixed for 15 mins and applied the enamel and it seemed to go on very well although it was pretty thick to roll on. Let it sit for 3 days before using the shower. Everything seemed fine but after 2 weeks, I noticed some of the enamel bubbling and cracking off in one corner. Might try and repair it. Doesn't seem to be the primer, just the enamel. Such a shame because the rest of the tub looks great.

Very thorough instructions thorough the videos. Easy to use. Covered very well. My first time doing something like this. Had a leaky fiberglass bathtub and it is like a brand new tub. The only imperfections are due to my inexperience and we could only find one sponge roller. We went to several stores. So I used regular rollers for the primer. I cannot express enough how much easier it would have been with a sponge roller. When I buy my next kit to do the surround I will make sure that I have sponge rollers! Thank you for making such a great product! And taking the time to make detailed videos. 10/10 Definitely would recommend.