Welcome to Adamov Reglazing, your trusted partner for bathtub reglazing and cabinet refinishing services in Southern California. We proudly serve residential and commercial clients across multiple locations, helping you revitalize your bathrooms and kitchens with cost-effective, professional solutions.
Finished up another job in Seal Beach this week, a fiberglass tub and shower combination unit that had been through a lot over the years. The homeowner had moved into the place about two years ago and inherited the bathroom in rough shape. He’d been weighing whether to gut the whole thing or just refresh what was there, and after looking at what a full bathroom remodel runs these days, he decided to call us about tub reglazing instead. Smart move, honestly. The unit itself was structurally sound, it just needed work.
Three main issues going on with this one. The shower had originally come with a glass shower door frame mounted to the surround, and at some point that frame had been removed. Whoever took it off left behind a row of screw holes drilled into the fiberglass, plus a long bead of old silicone that had been smushed under the frame brackets. On top of that, there were a couple of chips on the walls of the surround, probably from shampoo bottles getting knocked off the soap niche or just regular wear and tear from however many years of use.
First step, like usual on a job like this, was getting that old silicone off. Silicone is one of the most stubborn materials we deal with. It bonds tight to fiberglass and it doesn’t want to leave. We worked it off carefully with plastic scrapers so we wouldn’t scratch the surface underneath, then went back over the area with a solvent to lift what was left behind. Skip this step or rush it, and the new coating won’t bond properly to the patches of silicone residue still sitting on the surface. You’ll see it peel within months.
Next we moved into the deep cleaning. This unit had the molded-in texture on the surround walls that’s meant to look like ceramic tile, complete with fake grout lines running between each “tile.” It’s a popular look for fiberglass shower resurfacing jobs in Orange County because it gives the unit a more upscale appearance, but those grout lines are dirt magnets. Every one of them was packed with years of soap scum and that grayish buildup you can’t reach with a sponge. We brushed each line individually with a stiff-bristle brush and degreaser, working our way around the entire surround until every line was actually clean. Took us a while, but you can’t coat over grime and expect it to last.
After the cleaning came the repair work. We filled all the screw holes from the old shower frame with a fiberglass body filler, the same kind of material used in auto body work. It bonds properly to fiberglass, sands smooth, and won’t crack or shrink over time. Same treatment for the chips on the walls. Once everything was filled and cured, we sanded each spot flush with the surrounding surface so nothing would telegraph through the final coating.
Then came masking, which on a job like this is half the work. We covered the floor, the ceiling, the walls outside the surround, and the door and door frame. Fiberglass refinishing produces fine overspray that drifts further than people expect, and the last thing anyone wants is a fine mist of white industrial coating settling onto their hallway floor. We also set up our ventilation system, running tubing out a window so the fumes had somewhere to go besides the rest of the house.
Once the prep was done, we sprayed our bright white industrial-grade polyurethane coating in even passes. The customer came back to see the finished job and was genuinely happy with how it turned out.
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