How to build a sink in a corner ?

Hi !
The contractor I hired to do the masonry work has just finished my "next new darkroom" !
So now I face the equipment construction problem (and have all the stuff I own fit inside...)
The major problem is that the only place I have for the sink is a corner of the room.... one side is 1m90 cm (5 3/4 feet) and the other is 1m 70 cm (5 feet) long. but, if I've a good idea on how to build a rectangular plywood sink, I suspect my case to be a builder's nightmare....
So any help will be greatly appreciated ! Plans, pictures, construction details, all will help !
TIA !
P.S. I own a set of books on the subject :
The Kodak "building a home darkroom", "The darkroom handbook" by Dennis Curtin and Joe DeMaio, and "build your own home darkroom" by Lista Duren and Will McDonald.

You can rough in the opening and counter with 2x4's and then do a plywood liner that is removable. There has been some mention of using truck bed liner material sprayed in place once the sink is made. Use plenty of glue and drywall screws for the plywood. This should hold up pretty well. It will be haevy, but once the sink is made, it can be removed from the 2x4 framework, taken to a truck fitter, sprayed and returned to the darkroom. Don't forget to cut in the drain. Good luck. tim

i used a wooden sink for years .. build the legs out of 4x4x8's using 2x4 as described by tim as a support system. the truck liner is a good idea, but the best sinks i used were made of marine plywood - caulked before screwing together and then a thick skin of fiberglass resin. be prepared to repair it every few years. the chemistry will eat through the resin after a while, but it isn't hard - just scrape it down, use a bit of fiberglass cloth and resin again. make sure you build it on a slope ( so it will drain ) a windshield wiper works wonders as a cheep squeegee to get all the water out & down the drain.

good lucK!

-john

Are you saying your room size is 5 and 3/4 by 5 feet? Dan

I was at a plumber supply house and saw a shower floor. That comes in 5 and 6 feet and smaller deminsions. The cost was 180. and lower. I thought that would make a great b\darkroom sink. It has a drain on the bottom, ridges to lift any trays off the bottom. It has to be strong because its meant to be a shower floor. It's a plastic.
My Next darkroom thats the route I'm going.
Otherwise, find a carpenter to build your sink. I did that for a 4 footer I needed. My carpenter built it with pressure wood and rust resistant screws. Afterwards, I epoxy it and then three coats of marine paint.

dancqu said:

Are you saying your room size is 5 and 3/4 by 5 feet? Dan

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No, not exactly.
The corner on which I plan to put the sink is.
The darkroom is 2m78 by 3m78 (I prefer you make the conversion yourself, because I'm lost at inches, feet, and so on) But the walls are holed by doors, access, so the only place useable for the sink is the abovementioned corner.
I'm currently playing with a set of little papers enlargers, fridge, tables and so on on a scale paper plan to figure out the way to install all my stuff inside.
Maybe my wife us true when she says that I've got too much gear !
Thanks for the help !

You may have already done this, but I'd start at the other end. That is, allow where the sink drain can tie into existing plumbing to determine the sink's location. Hot and cold water lines can be run almost anywhere. Once the drain location is determined, the rest of the layout can be planned.

rbarker said:

You may have already done this, but I'd start at the other end. That is, allow where the sink drain can tie into existing plumbing to determine the sink's location. Hot and cold water lines can be run almost anywhere. Once the drain location is determined, the rest of the layout can be planned.

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Well my constraint are strong, here.
There are 3 doors I must keep clear and the drain is on another part of the house, one meter and a half above ground level of my darkroom, so I will be forced to use a pump for lifting the sewer.
The enlarger can only go at one place (ceilling height just sufficient to install it) making the wall unavaillable for the sink.
So I only have a corner to put the sink, and I'll be forced to route sewer pipe a little bit. (but as it is a forced sewer, pipie diameter is low, so this will ease installation...)
I've also a ventilation problem, which will involve making ahole for the vent in a concrete wall (highly resistent wall because it is part of the basement) So I've got some work to do !
Add to this that my current darkroom is the spare toilet/bedroom couple, and my wife asks I free them ASAP for my mother in laws.....
It will be fine when finished, because being in the basement, I won't ear the other people living in the house, so I will be able to hide in it....
Thanks for responding !

(Basement, pumped drain, etc.) Ah, I understand now.

As to that vent, depending on what's above the basement, it might actually be possible to creat a fresh-air inlet (pre-tempered house air, helped by a inlet fan) and an exhaust duct through opposing parts of the ceiling. I think I'd explore that fully before trying to pierce a sub-grade concrete wall. For example, you might be able to run the exhaust duct up through the back of a first-floor cupboard to an outside drier-type vent. Usually, basements are intended to be pretty much water-tight from the outside. Piercing the wall below grade could easily create all sorts of other problems.

My sink is a corner sink. In the diagram the left side wavy lines are where I stack 5-20x24 trays.

It is simply a framed in stand made out of 2x4s with a open box on top as the sink about 8 inches deep. The interior is painted with outdoor house paint.

When printing 20x24s I can hold dev, stop, fix 1, fix2, permawash in the stack area. In the far corner is the drain as well as where I have a 20x24 tray placed upon a piece of plexi about 3 inches high where I have a syphon wash.

On the right side back against the wall is a 20x24 archival washer.

Michael

Here are the floor plan and pictures of the corner sink(s) in my garage darkroom built last year. The long "process" sink (37 1/2" wide) spans a 20 foot wall to the corner where it drains by tilit in both directions towards the drain pipe in the far corner. The smaller "wash" sink abutts the long sink and its drain feeds into a common drain coming from the long sink and into the house plumbing on the other side of the short sink wall (I was "lucky" there - you're main problem would seem to be the pump necessary to lift water to your existing drains. The contractor (...don't get me started) built the 2 sinks out of 3/4 inch marine grade plywood, glued and screwed. I waterproofed the sinks with several coats of (white) marine gel coat. The gel coat is difficult to get right so I would recommend other options (marine epoxy?)

f64'ed-up said:

Here are the floor plan and pictures of the corner sink(s) in my garage darkroom built last year. The long "process" sink (37 1/2" wide) spans a 20 foot wall to the corner where it drains by tilit in both directions towards the drain pipe in the far corner. The smaller "wash" sink abutts the long sink and its drain feeds into a common drain coming from the long sink and into the house plumbing on the other side of the short sink wall (I was "lucky" there - you're main problem would seem to be the pump necessary to lift water to your existing drains. The contractor (...don't get me started) built the 2 sinks out of 3/4 inch marine grade plywood, glued and screwed. I waterproofed the sinks with several coats of (white) marine gel coat. The gel coat is difficult to get right so I would recommend other options (marine epoxy?)

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Hi !
What a luxury darkroom, with an AC ....
Raising the sewer is actually easy ! In Europe one can find a self contained unit which plugs direct on the drain and with a floating switch activates a pump which is able to lift the sewer 10 m high and pulse it 50 m long... the exhaust tube is 32 mm dia, so it is easy to route, and cheap...
In my camera club, at its previous location we had a huge sing made of plywood reinforced with fiber glass tissue glued with epoxy resin. This sink resisted 40 yes, 40 years of common use and abuse by the children one afternoon every week (kids above 10 and under 17) So I plan to make mine using the same technique ;-) it will survive me, I think !
My only difficult problem is piercing the basement wall for a plastic tube of 100 mm to route the fresh air. (I forgot to ask the contractor, which has made one hole, for exhaust, but did not know I needed to let air in, also...)
Anyway, I'm impressed by the innovation people place in their darkroom !
Thanks for your help !

Some people just put an air vent in the door for the inward flow of air.

http://www.calumetphoto.com/ctl?ac....ch&PAGE=Controller&keywords=air+vent&x=18&y=4

Michael

blansky said:

Some people just put an air vent in the door for the inward flow of air.

http://www.calumetphoto.com/ctl?ac....ch&PAGE=Controller&keywords=air+vent&x=18&y=4

Michael

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Yes, I know... But my door is heavy steel and is under the ground level (the darkroom is in the basement) so I think I've better way to drill a 4" hole in the concrete...
Anyway, thanks Michael !

Georges,

The AC unit is a small, cheap, split-type with no outside vent. I hear they're very common outside the US. It is very quiet and allows me to keep the temperature inside at 20C conveniently to speed processing of prints and film. Fresh air is a different story, as you've discovered. I achieve this semi-passively with a large Doran exhaust fan over the sink and a fresh air entry in the ceiling "piped" to an ouside wall. Air is "pulled" into the room by the exhaust fan. The Doran is extremely noisy so I have installed a variable speed fan switch to control its speed (thus noise) when large air transfer is not required. Another point about the split-type AC is that very few US AC installers know how to install them correctly, so finding appropriate installation can be much more expensive than the cost of the unit.

Hi Georges
My sink is in the corner of the basement and water has to travel about 30ft.to the main drain.So from your sink you have to have about 2% fall to the main drain and right after "P" trap or as close as you can you have to have vent for the drain to work usually vents go to the roof but you can use cheater vent.Right outside of the wall I installed "Y' coupling and straight pipe up about 3ft, vent cap.Down at the other end the main drain 4" pipe cut it install 4"x11/4" coupling .You can join all this with rubber couplings because main drain is not flexible.So you don't have to have a pump to get rid of the water. Hopefully this helps.
Regards Greg

Hi greg !
No, your system is un practical for me. My drain is about 5 ft ABOVE the sink ! So water won't flow upward ....
By now, I've made the hole in the concrete wall to pick up air, and planned the pipe installation for bringing air from this hole to the darkroom. I am designing a filter box and a light tight fan to put air in the darkroom. I have to find a second fan, weaker than the previous one to suck air from the above of the sink, to the exhaust hole in the wall the contractor has made. This way I'll have a positive pressure in the darkroom preventing outside dust to come in ...
Planning is as follow :
Floor and wall painting (floor using a highly resitent paint made for industrial garage or car shops. Ligth yellow. Walls and ceilling pure white, a paint designed for bathrooms. Walls around the enlarger flat black to reduce printing flare, even if my Laborator 1000 does not leak light)
Electrical wiring. Using apparent tubes and a highly sensitive ground fault interrupt switch at the main line...
Lightproofing (entrance door need some work, access doors to others parts of the basement need to become air tight.)
Sink, and others furnitures building.
Plumbing , including the sewer and water panel construction. I'll have a small water heater to have some hot water to raise a bit water temp in winter (for wash water)
Moving all my stuff inside, and print, print, print ! Yes !
Planned difficulties : find a car to go shopping for the plywood panels... I'll ask a friend of mine which owns a truck ;-)
BE able to wait for paint to dry, and fiberglass and epoxy paint to cure ;-)
As I've already done a lot of DIY work (including the roof of my house ) I think I'll be able to complete this work. But how long will it take ? Dunno .
Thanks for all your ideas, help and support !
I'll keep you posted !