Refinishing a Cast Iron Pedestal Sink

We scored an antique cast iron sink at a salvage warehouse for $20.  That seemed like a great deal even though the sink had considerable rust around the overflow.  For $20, it was worth a shot to try to refinish it ourselves just to see if maybe it would work out.

Since we needed to refinish our craigslist claw foot tub, we decided to use the sink as practice before refinishing the tub.

We used the Rustoleum Tub and Tile Refinishing Kit.  The prep work was quite tedious.  It involved scrubbing and sanding the sink.  We followed the instructions to a T.

Sink prepped and ready for refinishing.

Prepped and ready for refinishing.

We used a foam roller for the sink and a small artist brush to get into the little places where the roller would not go.  We put 2 coats of the Rustoleum product on the sink which is what was recommended.  Overall, it turned out pretty well.  The roller worked really well.  There were no brush marks or roller marks at all, and it was not nearly as messy as spraying it would have been.  However, there are a few lessons that we learned.

The important points we learned from this are:

1. Use as thin of a coat as possible; otherwise, you will have runs in the paint. 
2. It would have been better to do 3 coats instead of 2. 
3. Do not try to correct any mistakes.  The paint is somewhat self-leveling and the mistakes will mostly correct themselves.
4. Refinish the underside of the lip of the sink as well.  We did not think to do that and plan go back to do it.  The sink is rusty.  So when water drips down the underside it makes rusty water stains.

Refinished sink

Refinished sink