Bobrick B-5456 - Surface-Mounted Towel Bar, 18"

It's a surface-mounted bar, so no wall cavity or recessed prep is needed. The threaded escutcheon flanges thread over the mounting plates once those plates are fastened to the wall, hiding the fasteners and pulling the flange tight to the finished surface. That makes it workable on tile, drywall with proper backing, or block, as long as you can anchor the two mounting plates at the bar's end points.

The B-5456 is the 18 inch bar. The same design is also made in a 24 inch length, so if you are standardizing a run of guest baths or a hotel floor and need the wider bar over a tub, the 24 inch is the one to spec instead. The mounting flanges are 2 inches in diameter on both.

Bobrick classifies the B-5456 as a residential-grade accessory, so it suits guest rooms, apartment units, and multi-family bathrooms rather than heavy public washroom use. Property managers fitting out unit bathrooms are the natural buyer here. For a high-abuse public restroom, look at a heavier commercial-series bar instead.

Two: bright polished stainless and satin stainless. Bright polished is the mirror look and shows water spotting and fingerprints faster, which matters in a high-traffic public restroom; satin is the usual choice where housekeeping frequency is limited or where the rest of the washroom hardware is brushed. Pick the one that matches the grab bars and dispensers already in the room.

Solid stainless steel, both bar and flanges. That is the reason it holds up in a damp bathroom where a plated finish would eventually blister or pit at the wall joint. No plated substrate to fail.

No. Each end has a threaded escutcheon that screws down over the mounting plate after the plate is anchored, so the fasteners sit behind the 2 inch flange. You get a clean flange face and a tight seat against the wall with no exposed screw heads to corrode or be picked at.

Yes. Bobrick publishes a technical data sheet covering the B-545 and B-5456 with the mounting detail and rough dimensions, plus a separate care and maintenance guide for the stainless finish. There's also a French-Canadian version of the technical sheet if you're submitting on a Quebec job.

Bobrick issues a dedicated care and maintenance document for its stainless washroom accessories, and housekeeping should follow it rather than a general-purpose bathroom routine. The short version for a stainless bar: avoid abrasive pads and chloride-based or acid cleaners, which attack the passive layer and cause pitting at the flange joint. Bright polished shows cleaning marks more readily than satin.