Bathrooms: Chrome Shower Fixture Rescue

by Matthew Gingerella

2 Hours

Easy

Once upon a time, I had beautiful shiny chrome shower fixtures...then I turned on the water!
Now, I have old neglected scale crusted shower fixtures with chemical burns and metal stains (photo The latter came from trying to make the shower fixtures shiny again using limescale removers and/or bleach - oops.

bathrooms chrome shower fixture rescue, bathroom ideas, cleaning tips

It's easy enough to go out and buy brand new shower fixtures, but anybody could do it the easy way - so I'm going to share how to Refurb these ugly eye sores back to like-new condition using some straight forward methods. First, I will remove the scum and limescale build-up. Second, I will make the chemical burns and metal stains disappear. Thirdly, I don't want to do this again so I am going to protect my finished fixtures.

Remove Scum & Limescale

Since I keep seeing the DIY posts on how to make shower fixtures beautiful by rubbing a lemon on them, I thought it would be fun to give it a try. As I suspected, lemons don't cut it if there is any kind of real limescale build-up on the fixtures - so you can skip that method (photo

Going with a tried and true method, I dropped the scaled-up fixtures into a bath of Distilled White Vinegar and let them soak for over an hour (photo

After the soak, I scrubbed the residue off with a scratchless scrub sponge and the results can be seen in photo #4. Note - that the scum and limescale build-up are gone; however, the chemical burns and metal stains are highly visible. Still ugly.

Remove Chemical Burns & Stains

It's time to use the right tool for the job for refurbing chrome metal - Metal Polish. I wiped on a light coat of metal polish (photo

Then rubbed and buffed and polished until the stains were gone and I could see myself in the chrome finish - beautiful (photos

Prevent Future Scale & Chemical Stains

My dilapidated shower fixtures were now cleaned up to like new condition, and since I don't want to perform this refurb - again - I took the extra step to protect the metal and make it easy-cleaning. Once again, I used the right tool for the job - in this case a special high-tech surface protectant called Self-Cleen ST3 Bullet-Proof Bathroom Super-Coat. It creates a solid barrier layer over the metal to protect it, and the same layer actively repels soap scum and limescale.

Preparation for Coating

Prior to coating my like-new fixtures, I needed to remove the polish residue off the surface. I just wiped the fixtures off with common Isopropyl Alcohol (Rubbing Alcohol, 70%), see results in photo #9.

Apply Protective Coating

The Bullet-Proof Barrier protective coating is applied in two parts. I sprayed on Part-1 (photo then immediately sprayed on Part-2 directly on top of Part-1, swirled the two together with a soft cloth to mix them well, waited 30-seconds and wiped off the excess coating. Buff to a shine.

Finished Results

The results were spectacular (photo and would stay that way for 6-8 months, then I will spray the fixtures with the Bullet-Proof Bathroom coating again to maintain protection and ease of cleaning.

Life is too short to look at ugly shower fixtures - try this easy Refurb and love your shower fixtures again.

Autosol Metal Polish and Self-Cleen ST3 Bullet-Proof Bathroom Super-Coat are available on Amazon.

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2 comments

Panhandlelil1 on Sep 02, 2015
I always wipe my fixtures dry when I use them. I have fixtures that look new and they are at least 20 years old. A couple of seconds is all it takes.

1 Reply
- Matthew Gingerella on Sep 02, 2015
  @Panhandlelil1 - thank you for your helpful tip. I'm sure that some of the more disciplined readers may be able to use it.
  
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