To answer that I need to tell you a little story about personal bath tubs.
The very first bath tub was thought to date back to the Isle of Crete in 1000BC. It was made from hardened pottery and was 1.5 metres long. Fast forward to the 19th century and the classic styled claw foot cast iron baths. Because these freestanding baths look so great and give such a good soak they are still found in many homes today.
So how did we go from bathing on hardened pottery ( that must have been pretty uncomfortable…) to a porcelain enamel on our cast iron bath tubs? Well, just ask David Dunbar Buick, ( have you worked it out yet ? ) Yes, that’s right the Scottish born American inventor who founded the famous Buick Motor Company.
You see Dunbar was a prolific inventor and one of his best inventions was developing the method for permanently coating cast iron baths with vitreous ( porcelain enamel). This white coating of basically melted powdered glass had a number of properties which made it extremely suitable as a bathtub surface. As the temperature rises the powder melts and flows through the mould it hardens and is smooth to touch. Other properties are it’s considerable strength, hardness, toughness, whiteness, low permability, it’s elasticity, highly resistant to chemical attack and thermal shock and importantly, easy to clean.
INTERESTING FACT 1: Dunbar used the money he made from his enamelling process to start Buick.
So if you are the lucky owner of genuine antique clawfoot bath and it needs restoring…“don’t throw it out” get ThermoGlaze to restore it to it’s former glory because that’s what we do and it will transform it’s value. In fact true antique clawfoot bath tubs are still considered a collectible item. Check out the values on ebay but can be worth thousands of dollars.
These beautifully restored Thermoglazed clawfoot baths certainly have the wow factor every time when you open your bathroom door.
INTERESTING FACT 2: Buick’s method for enamelling is still used today……amazing!
