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Bill/Mungo custom deep soak tub?

15 years ago

Hi, how would you custom fit a bathtub shaped to hold seat/knees to "float completely relaxed" and not slide under? A movable part seems easy, but with drought realities, I'd rather displace the water and maybe adjust the back/headrest with a pillow. Not sure how to think this through to fit any body type? The first pic is a custom tub/shower (tile and slate) at the Post Ranch Inn, and the second is from www.Bainultra.com -Tekura-thermomasseur bath.

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Ideally, it should be deep enough for the tallest person, simply fill only high enough for the shortest to be safe/comfortable/"float completely relaxed". Would you shape concrete like building a swimmingpool, or fiberglass the shape, or build with waterboard? or how do you dream something up?

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Comments (3)

bill_vincent
15 years ago
You might want to keep looking, provided you have a deep pocketbook. I don't know the name of the company, only that they're in southern California. but back about 8 years ago, I did a roman tub for some people who actually went out to the manufacturer's plant, got nekkid, and sat in a mold, so as to mold the tub to their bodies. What they got was a 1" thick reinforced fiberglass tub that I tiled for them with 1/2" mosaic marble:
bodiCA
Original Author
15 years ago
Thank you Bill, that is an excellent example of exactly what I'm pondering. I thought about fiberglass as that is how Hubby's custom racecar seats are molded. So the thickness of the fiberglass is self supporting or is the space around the mold filled with sand, hummm, that would insulate also ,no? Was it's nooks & crannies a pain to tile? What did you think of the end result?
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bill_vincent
15 years ago
I'm not sure how it was braced. I wasn't there when it was installed. As for tiling it, it was one of the toughest projects I ever worked on. There were days when I only installed two or three square feet in an 8 hour day. Much of that had to be put in a piece or strip of tile at a time, to get all the different areas to mesh together. About the only places where I was able to use sheets of tile were on the window side of the tub, and the center bottom. It took me 8 days to do the tub alone. But it's also one of the best projects I've ever worked on.

I've said many times-- it's the projects that cause you to pull your hair out and drink your supper that you end up being most proud of afterward, and for me, this was one of them. :-)

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