Bathtub Re-Enamel - first coat!

Last night Cary and I finally put the first coat of new enamel on the clawfoot tub. The preparations had taken a lot longer than I originally thought they would, but it seemed like a good idea to work methodically through all the steps to ensure we'd be happy with the finished product. I know I've written here more than once that we were gonna do it this weekend or that, but this time it's for real and I've got the pictures to prove it!
It's really amazing how different the tub looks. Going back through the pictures I've taken of the tub through the various stages is pretty impressive. This is what it looked like after I washed the dirt and fir needles out of it:

This is after several scrubbings with steel wool, simple green, Bon Ami, CLR and TSP, as well as the application of the chip fix compound which really shows how discolored the enamel was by age. Some discoloration did come off with the scrubbing (compare to picture above), but by no means all of it.
To the left here is a close up of the rim, showing a couple of the larger chips on the back rim of the tub. To the right is the same section of the rim, after several successive layers of chip-fix and last night's new enamel coating.

It's still not perfectly smooth, there are some flat spots along the rolled edge, but I doubt anyone but me will ever notice. Especially since this edge will be about an inch from the bathroom wall. :)

And here's the finished first coat. Tonight I'll go out and put on the second and hopefully final coat, after sanding out any drips (fingers crossed, maybe there won't BE any - we TRIED to spray it on lightly and evenly). According to the package, in some cases a third coat is required, but I am hopefull that we won't have to do that, because it would probably require buying another batch of the epoxy. I guess we'll know in a couple of days, when we get a look at the cured finish.

In other exciting news, they started siding the house yesterday! I'm really pleased. It will be a real releif to get the siding up on before the wet weather really kicks in. Not to mention the exterior paint. Also it looks really cool, compared to tar paper. ;)