water resistant bathroom lights

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I changed my mom's light bulb recently and the lock up cap on her light fixture was really rusty. Does anyone know if there is a water (humidity) resistant version of that? It's the little decorative piece at the tip of a light fixture.

[Campbell Ritchie]

...and there I was thinking you meant to submerge the lamps
Round here, I tend to use solid off‑white PVC which obviously won't rust, or you could try solid brass/aluminium etc. Unfortunately rust‑resistant materials can still attract condensation and dust and moulds. Under certain circumstances the copper in the cables will conduct heat away above the ceiling so the light fitting will be slightly cooler than the rest of the room and that may attract the condensation. A metal frame being a better conductor of heat than PVC may worsen that effect. The simpler and smoother the shape of the fitting, the easier it will be to clean and the less trouble you will have with mould.

[Jan de Boer]

Probably a long shot, but as a former chemistry student the first thing I thought of was this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrogalvanization

Get the piece in normal metal, and do it yourself. It is a rather laborious solution though..

[Campbell Ritchie]

I trust you are not trying to persuade Jeanne to use the cyanides suggested in that link.

[Jan de Boer]

You need to do such stuff in a special cabinet with air suction above... You might convince the teenage daughter of your neighbours to do it as a high school chemistry project. Anyway, when I moved from Chemistry to Information Science, I statistically added five years to my life expectation, I was told by my fellow students, yes. But this is only a one time project I assume. Could not be worse than the poison you put in your blood during a average new years party in Amsterdam. Could it?

[Campbell Ritchie]

I thought they inhaled any poisons in Amsterdam.

[Jan de Boer]

Yeah, okay, but seriously and back to topic: You can also go physical, instead of chemical, and put the piece in a bath of melted tin or zinc:

http://www.wikihow.com/Galvanize-Steel

The disadvantage is that the metal can be deformed a little, so you should not do it with anything with the thread of a screw.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Can you melt tin or zinc over a gas ring? Do you need a stainless steel pan?

[Jan de Boer]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:Can you melt tin or zinc over a gas ring?

I remember doing that exact thing with tin, making soldiers as a child. But before going deep into this, let us wait for Jeanne to say if she is interested in trying it.

[Paul Clapham]

Moving the topic back to things that one might want to do in one's mother's bathroom...

I expect that replacing the fixture is a non-starter. Finding a replacement lock-up cap might be an option, although my guess is that might be a frustrating exercise. Perhaps just painting over the lock-up cap with some kind of paint? It would have to be paint which would adhere to the metal, and it would have to come in a colour which resembled the original colour reasonably well. But going out to buy a quart of marine-grade rust-proof paint for metal boats and then using a small amount of it to paint this little gadget seems like a waste.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Paul Clapham wrote:Moving the topic back to things that one might want to do in one's mother's bathroom...

It is MD> I can't complain about the off topic comments :).

Paul Clapham wrote:I expect that replacing the fixture is a non-starter.

Yeah. This is a minor annoyance. In fact, she's fine with it as is. I was more wondering if there was something I could do. Painting it is an interesting option.

[Jan de Boer]

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:
It is MD> I can't complain about the off topic comments :).

I actually was serious about galvanization.! I know one man who did this with screws and nails of a home made rabbit cage in his rainy garden. No joke! We all thought it was a bit over the hill though.