Premier, that was my first thought, but I simply cannot bear the thought of being without a bathroom for another 3-4 weeks while I wait for all the materials that would have to be reordered, etc. I am willing to accept the repair if it looks okay, especially since it's not in a hugely noticeable area (particularly once the glass is installed). This is the only bathroom in the house so doing without a shower is a huge inconvenience.

Anyway, does anyone have any tips on sanding out the spot? TIA!

Can the whole tub be refinished?

You wouldn't want to refinish the whole tub.

Why would you be without the tub? The tub would remain installed and you would be using it while the new one is being ordered. They can rip out the old one and install the new one in one day.

A repair never looks great and only looks worse as time goes by. Why should you deal with that for years to come.

Well, Premier, I will have to argue that you are wrong about the repairs on 'all' tubs looking bad and getting worse. I bought a house once that had a hole in the tub, brand new house. I told the contractor before we moved in, I wanted the tub replaced. He told me they would repair it. I argued. We went back home, assuming he would replace the tub. we returned 4-6 months later, moved in and never gave it a thought. Contractor came for a visit one day and asked how I liked the repaired tub? I never saw the repair on it. I never saw it all the years I lived there and I went by to visit the lady who bought the house more than 30 years later and the tub looks fine, still. She's a great housekeeper, they rarely use that (which was the kids' bathroom) and it looks fine, shiny and white.

bio, I would look in the yellow pages and call a few guys who do this work all the time. Talk to each one and find out how they would deal with it. Then get the one that sounds most like he knows what he's talking about and have him/her come fix it. Make sure you ask how they are going to polish it out so that it will match the new tub. I'd call a few high end bath places and ask them if they could recommend any one to do this type of repair. Enough monkeying around.

I'd be worried about compromising the tile work and seal around the tub if you change it out now (but don't tell contractor that - he needs to be scared your going to make him replace it)

Budge, that's what I am planning to do if this isn't something I can sand out myself. Quite honestly, they did a fine job of filling the scratch, I just don't understand why they covered such a large adjacent area with the patch material. The problem is, I'm sure my contractor will insist on having a crack at it before I call someone else, and I worry that he will just make things worse. Frustrating! As for pulling out the tub, I am definitely worried about destroying all the tile work and such at this point - and after taking showers sitting down for 2 months, the last thing I want is a delay in installing the glass.

In the meantime, does anyone have any advice about sanding acrylic? Even if I don't do it myself, I'd like to know the right way to go about it so I can interview people...

You, yourself, need to leave it alone. You do not have the proper tools, air compressors, etc. Do what Budge said and get a "real" professional. In our town, the BM store knows all the good people and all the bad. A good paint store will know who does this well and who does not. Your contractor sounds like a nitwit, otherwise he would know.

"and after taking showers sitting down for 2 months, the last thing I want is a delay in installing the glass."

I am sure this is an incredibly stupid question, but why didn't you spend $10-15 on a tension shower rod and a cheapo shower curtain to put up temporarily? (Where I live you can get a basic plastic shower curtain at the dollar store.)

Johnmari, my bathroom has a window right in the middle of the wall where such a curtain would have to be attached, which is part of the reason I decided to go with glass in the first place. Also, there is a half wall on the other end of the tub, so even if I wanted to brace the tension rod against the window, there's no wall on the other side to brace it against. I'd have to mount a curved rod , which I do not want to do. I actually don't mind the seated shower (kind of european style) but BF hates it and he's not very good at it - he loses control of the handheld and water goes everywhere, LOL!

I don't know how patricia's hole was able to be repaired perfectly because a hole is pretty bad.

In the OP's case, she had a gouge and the guy applied "acrylic goo". I know stratches can be repaired by sanding, polishing and buffing. But when it comes to filling in a gouge or hole, and you have to add some filler...the filler color must be the right color. The OP stated that it is a completely different color. I don't believe that sanding and polishing will change the color. They change the texture. The real color of the tub will change over time and so will this patch color. The color of a patch generally changes more so than that of a tub since the tub is a solid surface. If the guy used the wrong color to begin with and that is what it sounds like, I don't see how it will ever look perfect.

And it would personally bug me if my new tub had to be patched right off the bat.

Oh trust me, it bugs me, but if the alternative is having this idiot rip out the tub and try to install a new one, forget it. I just want him and his merry band of morons out of my house. The original gouge was less than 1/2 an inch long, so if he had just filled it in, I probably wouldn't have noticed that the filler color was slightly off. I have NO idea why he decided to leave a huge patch of stuff on the completely undamaged surrounding areas, and basically what I would like to accomplish with sanding is to remove the unnecessary area of the patch and just leave it in the actual gouge. I'm a little concerned that they may have gouged the tub further to try to repair it, thus resulting in a larger patch - but there's no way to find that out other than removing some of the patch. Anyway, I guess I will just see what the contractor thinks he can do to make it look better and if that's not satisfactory, I'll find myself an expert.

Our acrylic install was a disaster too,they were in a big hurry and broke a corner piece off the tub when they were pushing it in.I think I will have to remove tub and just tile the walkin shower/tub and usejust an acrylic base.