Rub-a-Dub-Dub 2

...a man and his tub.

Here's how you refinish an old bathtub: You stand back and let the expert do it. What'cher lookin' at right here is Doug. Doug refinishes bathtubs (and sinks and toilets) for a living. Doug is very good at what he does, as you will see.

It's a two-step, two-day process. On Day 1, he deliberately ruins the old porcelain coating of the bathtub by etching it with acid. It's a water-based acid, so it's rendered harmless by the time it runs down the drain. The acid "opens up the pores" in the porcelain, according to Doug, who looks nothing at all like a hairdresser. Then he patches up the chips, nicks, dings, and imperfections in the porcelain with special putty. When that's done, he sprays the tub with new porcelain coating, sort of like spray painting but way messier and smellier. That explains all the paper and drop cloths in the bathroom and the fan strategically mounted in the window. We left the fan running all day to get the fumes out of the room. Whew!

Day 2 is pretty simple. He cleans up his mess and polishes the new finish with a buffing compound. After that, you're all done! The tub looks as good as new, maybe even better. All clean and shiny, with no chips anywhere. Good stuff.

After Doug was done, I put the hardware (drain, strainer, etc.) back on. Some of the original drain hardware was a bit too old and nasty to preserve, so I replaced it with shiny new hardware. But naturally, the old parts used nonstandard threads, so we had to get creative to make the new hardware mate up with the old. Now it all fits beautifully. We're almost back in business.