hey everybody I'm here today to show you how to recaulk your bathtub or shower now the process is really really simple and eating the most inexperienced doing yourselfers and homeowners can complete this really really easily just follow the instructions that I show you throughout this video and you'll be good to go alright everyone so the first step in wreaking your bathtub or shower is removing all of the old caulking that you have there so I'll give you a close-up shot of the caulking that I have and as you can see right there it's not the best caulking job that's why I'm redoing it and you need to use a variety of tools and your hand movements to get that old caulking out so what I have here is a tool that is specifically designed to remove old beads of caulking from bathtubs and showers and what not so it has a piece that I can scrape I put put in the corner of the caulking strip right there and push to remove and then it has this part right here that I can use to scrape off all the excess when you can use a utility knife if you don't have a specific tool you can even use a flathead screwdriver like this just to dig it out just be very careful and make sure that you do not scratch your shower your tiles or your bathtub all right so basically just use your tool of choice to sort of dig into the old caulking and work it out so as you can see I'm just digging in right here and this is an amazing tool because it allows it to come right out and you can sort of pull back on the caulking and just slowly but surely make your way around your bathtub or shower and get all of the old caulking out so I like to get the bulk of it out first and then I like to take the scraper the scraper portion of this right here and just go right against the tiles and right against the bathtub or shower depending on what you re caulking and just get out all of the old caulking that you see remove as much of it as you can here's a little quick tip to help you solve a problem that you may encounter so you may notice that your scraper will get off all of the surface o'clock just like right over here but you have some cocking that is sort of left underneath or behind the surface I should say so just like over here it's sort of in between the bathtub and the tile and my scraper won't get this caulking out from behind there so what you're going to want to do is you're going to use a flathead screwdriver and your fingers and just going to stick the flat out under there and be careful not to crack the tiles or ruin the tiles and just sort of work it out just like that you're going to want to get the flathead behind that kaki and just sort of swivel it around pull a little bit with your finger just like that and work your way around like that and as you can see this is how deep that caulking was I pulled it out it was like that so that is how deep the caulking was you know that was sort of left in between the bathtub and the tile so if you have some caulking that you can't get on with the scraper just use a combination of a flathead screwdriver and fingers to sort of work it and pry it out until you can get it all out alright everyone so now as you can see I've removed all of the caulking from the tiles and the bathtub over here so the next step is to ensure that this area is completely clean and dry now the cleaner and drier it is the easier it will be to apply the new bead of caulking because it will stick much better onto the bathtub shower or tile so what I like to do to ensure that this is completely completely clean and smooth and ready is to get a sponge that has barely been you know it's barely even damp at all and then just take the sponge and rub it along the area back and forth a few times take a few minutes to do this this will just ensure that all of the excess particles of the old caulking will sort of come off so take a sponge and is barely damp at all because you don't want to wet it too much so just take a barely damp sponge rub it all along the area completely along the perimeter scrub it a few times then you're going to take a towel to dry it off so I took this towel and then I dried all that area off over there that I rubbed the sponge along just to ensure that there was no water at all left over there and then what I did after I did that was I took a vacuum and I went along the entire perimeter of the bathtub where the caulking was just to make sure that there were no particles remaining at all so this is the key step you have to ensure that this area right here is completely smooth and clean so you should feel no bumps at all when you rub your finger along the tile or along the bathtub it should feel really really smooth and that's when you'll know that you're ready to move on to the next step now that the surface is completely clean and smooth and absolutely dry I can run my fingers along it just to verify that it's completely smooth clean and dry I'm ready to apply the caulking but the step that I'm about to show you right now is completely optional you can choose to apply the caulking right now freehand and you might be able to do a good job but I like to be you know to make it look as clean and as precise as possible so I am actually going to tape off the area so that I can get a very straight line of caulking so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take some painters tape and I'm going to place it around the entire perimeter of the bathtub right here I'm going to place it on the top and on the bottom to mask off the caulking about I would say a few millimeters above sort of the above the corner so I'm going to place it right there a few millimeters above the corner this doesn't want to stick because I didn't push it hard enough so just like that literally I would say between two and four millimeters above the corner you're going to place one at the top and then one at the bottom a few millimeters sort of outwards from the corner just like that and what this will do is it will ensure that the bead of caulking that I place along here when I place the caulking on there and I removed the tape the line will be completely straight and it will look almost perfect I don't want to say perfect but it will look almost perfect once again this is an optional staff you can choose to start caulking right away freehand or you can choose to masse the area off like I'm going to do so if you're choosing to mask the area off go ahead and mask it if not continue watching the video and I will show you how to [ __ ] the bathtub or shower alright now as you can see I've taped off the entire area that I will be recaulk so I've taped it off and I'm ready to go and whether you've used tape or not whether you've taped off your area or you're doing a sort of freehand then you should follow these instructions when you are ready to apply the caulking okay so what you will need is a little tub of water just like that for your finger to sort of smooth the caulking over and then some either toilet paper or paper towel just makes it easier to wipe the caulking off and makes a little bit less of a mess so I'm going to place the camera down and I'm going to show you how I will be talking this side right here just this side and then you can apply that process to the entire bathtub or shower or the area complete area that you will be talking I'll just show you this side because it's the same process for all of the sides okay so I'm going to take my talking gun I have cut the nozzle and I've Pierce it try and keep as small of a hole as possible because the smaller the hole the better that it will turn out I'm going to start in one area right here and I can apply the caulking in a slow but consistent manner so the key is to keep a consistent pace give a little bit and don't apply too much so just keep a very consistent pace slowly applying the caulking and a very consistent pace just like that the key is patience don't try and do it too quickly take your time yes it will be kind of hard on your shoulders and your arms but take your time it will pay out big time when you are done because it will look very very very nice so just slowly apply the caulking just like that make sure that you fill all of the holes and if you taped it like I did then it's not the worst thing in the world to apply too much because when you take the tape off all of the excess will come off anyways so just slowly apply the caulking just like that no rush and continue going I like to do one whole side at a time just because I can sort of work the caulking before it dries or before you even starts to dry so just continually apply it until you get to the end of the side just like that I'm going to place my caulking gun over to the side right over here then I'm going to be dipping my finger in the water and I'll show you a close-up right now and I did my finger in the water and I'm going to use my finger to just smooth over the caulk that I have just applied just like that and I taped it off so it's no big deal that I have a lot of extra but if you didn't tape it off you're going to try and you know clean it up as much as you can I highly recommend taping it off and as you can see Kleenex or a paper towel will take the caulking right off my finger so continuing on just like this gonna dip my finger in there and just once the water is on your finger it will be much easier to move your finger along the caulking she's going to wipe my finger one more time on the toilet paper down here dip it in the water and just continue now once again if you didn't apologize for the shaky camera I'm holding all the one hand if you didn't tape off your area you're going to want to try and do it sort of as smoothly as possible but since I've taped it off all of this excess will be gone so just apply just like that and then sort of try and get a smooth finish just like that so here is one side just give you a little close-up shot I taped it off so all that excess will be gone but if you didn't tape it off you're going to want to clean up areas like that you can just use the toilet paper or paper towel that you should have with you to clean up that area because it will make it very easy to wipe it off okay so I'm going to continue and do the rest of the bathtub and I will be right back once it's done alright everyone as you can see I have finished applying the kaki around the entire bathtub area over here all done and if you didn't apply the masking tape over here the painters tape then you're completely completely finished but if you did apply the painters tape like I did then you should definitely tear it off while the caulking is still wet so the caulking is still went now it's only been about five minutes not even three four minutes since I started and I'm going to just literally go and tear off all of the painters tape and try and pull away from the caulking so don't pull upwards try and pull away from the caulking and if you do happen to get an area that pops up just like this area right here then dip your finger in the water and just smooth it out just like that as much as you can obviously if they probably will never end up perfect but if you do get an area that pops up just like that dip your finger in water and just smooth it out and you won't get that absolutely perfect line that you want it to begin with but you know what um it's but much better than if you were to do a free hand and you didn't know what you were doing so I'm going to finish removing all of this tape and I will be right back alright everyone as you can see I just finished ripping off the tape and touching up any spots where the edge of the caulking had sort of lifted up and although it's not perfect it is pretty close to perfect and if you remember from the beginning of the video the bead of caulking was much much much thicker and it looked really ugly to be honest with you so it was really messy and it started to lift up because the water had sort of gotten under it now that I redid the caulking it's a really really thin bead of caulking right here much harder for water to get into so it's really really easy really simple to give you a close-up of this area right here you can do it yourself too it's really simple and extremely cheap so just follow the instructions that I have outlined in this video and you can recall your own bathtub or shower with ease thanks for watching