The Tub Saga

So, a few months back we're in Berkeley and stop by Ohmega Salvage. We weren't looking for a bathtub that day but knew we wanted a clawfoot eventually. We happened to find a cast-iron tub in a rare size, a deep and narrow soaking 25 incher. Ohmega wanted $250. Sold.

It needed refinishing, but was a great find. Aside from the paint and rust, it had several substantial porcelain chips and cracks, which were worrisome.




After paying another $160 for delivery, it sat in our garage for a few months. When it was delivered, we learned that the manufacturer date stamped the underside of each tub. We bonded with it even more.



Made on our wedding anniversary, just our size, and about to see its 100th birthday with us.

It's a keeper.

It looked like sandblasting and powdercoating was a good way to go for rejuvinating this baby, so I contacted a few different folks for quotes. We really didn't want a plasticy coating, and powder coating is much environmentally superior to traditional resurfacing (no VOCs in solvents or paint). The idea was to blast and coat the exterior; the interior was porcelain which I learned is nearly impossible to get off and even if you could, nobody resurfaces with actual porcelain anymore. And for the exterior, comments varied from, "sure no problem," to "it can't be done" with cast iron. I eventually went with West Coast Powdercoating in south city. Great people to work with. I very highly recommend them (unless you're coating a cast iron tub...)

I have to give tons of credit to A.J. at West Coast. He gave it well more than the ol' college try, and warned up front that they couldn't really predict how it was going to come out. I decided to risk it. Sure enough, the porcelain basically shattered in several places in the oven. Plus, the powder coating didn't come out as nicely as we wanted, as the iron released gasses when baking, making tiny bubbles and an irregular surface. We were well warned, but nevertheless disappointed (except for the feet, also cast iron, which for some reason came out great).



I don't have a picture of the damage, but just as well.

So we went to the traditional resurfacer, Miracle Method, which said they patch damage such as ours regularly. However, our "chips" were now more like missing chunks several inches long in places, so I was skeptical. But I can highly recommend MM East Bay -- they did an amazing job with what we gave them.


$410 for the tub, delivered; $350 for the powder coating (and more delivery); $525 for interior resurfacing. That's $1,285, and we haven't added any faucets yet....

We're never getting rid of this tub.