About San Jose Bathtub Reglazing Co.

Meet Mark Bellon, lead refinisher

Mark Bellon has been pulling a trigger on a spray gun for close to twenty years. The first decade was industrial and auto-body coating work — primers, single-stage urethanes, the kind of finishes that have to survive heat, vibration and weather. Around 2015 he brought that discipline indoors to San Jose bathrooms, and he has personally refinished 2,840-plus fixtures across the city since — roughly 1,650 bathtubs, 400 showers, 310 sinks, 255 countertops and 225 tile surrounds. He is the one most quotes go through, and on the harder jobs he is the one holding the gun.

His signature work is the heavy stuff other crews quietly decline. Original 1920s and 1930s cast-iron clawfoots out of Naglee Park and the Hanchett Park bungalows. Rust-stained porcelain-over-cast-iron tubs from postwar Willow Glen. Tired gelcoat fiberglass shower pans in 1980s Berryessa and Evergreen rentals that everyone else writes off. Mark reads a substrate by feel — the ring of the side panel, the weight, the way a chip fractures — and he matches the prep chemistry to it rather than spraying every tub the same way.

“A reglaze is ninety percent prep and ten percent spray,” he says. “Anyone can lay down a glossy coat for a day. Making it still be there in twelve years is about what you do to the surface before the gun ever comes out — and about telling a customer the truth when a tub is past saving instead of taking their money to coat over a crack.” That ethic is the reason he turns down jobs that should be replacements and the reason he trains every refinisher in the shop on the same prep-first order he learned the hard way.

Mark is trained in spray-applied acrylic-urethane systems and in lead-safe handling for the pre-1978 housing that fills older San Jose neighborhoods. He keeps current on California's coating rules so the products that go on your tub are compliant, and he treats the respiratory side of two-part coatings as seriously as the finish itself. If you want to know exactly how a fixture will be prepped before he commits to it, he will tell you on the phone.

How we hold our standard

The finish is only as good as the prep underneath it, and prep is where corners get cut. We mask and ventilate the room first, deep-clean to strip soap film and body oils, repair damage, etch or scuff-sand for adhesion, lay a bonding primer, then spray the topcoat in even coats. The fixture is dry to the touch in about 24 hours and ready for normal use in 24 to 48. We leave written care instructions and tell you the exact day to put it back in service. The full step-by-step is on our our process page, and it is the same sequence on every job, whether it is one tub or twenty.

The San Jose homes we work on

San Jose housing skews postwar, built roughly between 1945 and 1980, and that shapes what rolls through our schedule. Older Willow Glen, Rose Garden and Naglee Park homes still carry their original cast-iron and porcelain tubs. Those are heavy, well-made fixtures worth keeping, and they take a refinish beautifully. The 1970s and 1980s apartment stock in Berryessa, Alum Rock and Evergreen runs the other way: molded gelcoat fiberglass tub-and-shower units that craze and dull but coat up like new.

We cover the whole city, including Almaden Valley, Cambrian Park, Japantown, Santa Teresa, West San Jose, Blossom Valley, Communications Hill and Downtown, with no travel fee inside San Jose. High rental turnover in the east-side neighborhoods means we do a steady volume of landlord work between tenants, and the dense single-family pockets keep the owner-occupied side busy. We know which buildings have which fixtures, and that local read makes our quotes faster and more accurate.