Sanity check on my plans for a DIY darkroom sink?

[DREW WILEY]

Well, yeah, up around Puget sound you'd have quite a few marine specialty places, just like here in the SF Bay area. I actually sold incredible amounts or marine finishes for actual architectural applications as well, far more than for for actual boat use, since these hold up a lot better in general. I try to avoid liquid epoxies as much as possible these days, however. One can get permanently sensitized to them. But here, increasingly stringent air quality rules have eliminated most traditional oil-based finishes per se. Some of the marine houses illegally sneak them into inventory from out of State; but the fines are awfully high if they get caught. Smaller containers up to quart sized are often still allowed. That's how I had to sell a lot of Daly's products made in the NW. But it was the Sikken's line which was the real gold mine - now itself somewhat emasculated in quality for sake of CA smog rules. I still have my own personal stash of the good ole stuff, and even use one type of it periodically on my mahogany view camera.

 

[Tim Stapp]

Well, yeah, up around Puget sound you'd have quite a few marine specialty places, just like here in the SF Bay area. I actually sold incredible amounts or marine finishes for actual architectural applications as well, far more than for for actual boat use, since these hold up a lot better in general. I try to avoid liquid epoxies as much as possible these days, however. One can get permanently sensitized to them. But here, increasingly stringent air quality rules have eliminated most traditional oil-based finishes per se. Some of the marine houses illegally sneak them into inventory from out of State; but the fines are awfully high if they get caught. Smaller containers up to quart sized are often still allowed. That's how I had to sell a lot of Daly's products made in the NW. But it was the Sikken's line which was the real gold mine - now itself somewhat emasculated in quality for sake of CA smog rules. I still have my own personal stash of the good ole stuff, and even use one type of it periodically on my mahogany view camera.

Drew, you are a man after my own heart. Having been a woodworker for many years in addition to selling the equipment for working wood in addition to servicing Industrial and Commercial equipment (I was a factory service center for Powermatic and Jet) plus factory certified on Cantek equipment, I respect your pedigree.

Having stashed supplies, and spare parts is taking up way too much space in my shop.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I handled some classic Powermatic and Jet equipment; but the big cabinet shops were more a blend of much more expensive industrial gear and lots of Festool for sake of jobsite portabiity, prototyping, and one-offs. I had the one of the largest Festool inventories in the US, an even bigger selection than the catalog itself, actually all in stock. But we didn't handle big industrial woodworking equipment of the kind where the only profit involved is in the installation and service contracts. Powermatic is of course, more old school cast iron, and I'd simply have the bigger items, like 12 inch wide jointers, shipped directly to the end user provided they had their own loading dock and forklift. Out own service center accommodated anything relatively portable - we had the largest classic pneumatic nailer and stapler parts inventory anywhere in the world (especially Paslode and Senco), worked on many many portable compressors, did innumerable Bosch, Makita, and Milwaukee repairs (back when Milwaukee was still worth repairing), lots of industrial Skilsaws, gosh knows how many other items. Sioux air tools. Dewalt until it became outright trash. All of that is gone now, as the key people either retired or passed away, and when many tool brands went over to more of a disposable outsourced tool concept.

The fellow who ran the tool repair, along with the far more lucrative Marvin window & door warranty division, was ranked no. 2 in the world as an arm wrestler. He owned around 45 houses and had a huge income, but only slept about 4 hrs a night, took steroids, and died prematurely. His training partner himself had arms the size of tree trunks, but competed in the middleweight division instead because one of his legs was a hollow prosthetic. That guy was a professional lead sheet welder specializing in nuclear reactors, and accustomed to handling very heavy weights even with a fake leg. He's the one who heat welded my own 10 foot polypropylene darkroom sink - materials, fabrication, and even delivery right into place, all for $200. It's nice to have connections - or have had them, in the past tense.

For my own modest needs, I just use the Festool line bore plunge-router system, and their Domino joinery system. Even all the big shops used all those too, at least for sake of van portability, even if they had hundred-thousand dollar equivalents in the shop itself for sake of mass production. Often someone would be prototyping with the Festool, and then have the multiples made on their giant Xeroxish machines. None of this was really pre-fab, but all expensive custom work. It's amazing the kind of work that came out of that neighborhood. But I was a bit annoyed when a person who happened to be the richest individual in the world at the time ordered up a set of 40K apiece deck benches out of a rare tropical hardwood and had them beautifully Sikkens finished, but rather than putting on a refresher coat every two years, simply threw them out and ordered a new set each time. Conspicuous consumption is bad enough; but conspicuous waste? Somebody at the dump was darn lucky.

 

[MattKing]

Slightly grumpy Moderator hat on:
Glad the OP started out this thread asking for a "sanity check". Was that supposed to be an on topic "sanity check"?
Hat off.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Pretty sane so far. At least everyone seems to understand that certain kinds of coatings or sealants are potentially hazardous to apply indoors. That's certainly not been the case with numerous macho persons I've known in the past, who outright ruined their health by careless use of resins or epoxies or related solvents.

 

[Chuck1]

I'd keep the toilet too

 

[awty]

As a moderator, I always like it when I see a thread asking for a "sanity check"!
But as a darkroom user, and continuing on with jeffreyg's excellent suggestions:
- a surface that isn't slick and slippery makes it easier to place things and have them not move on their own;
- consider incorporating easily removable plastic or wire shelving material that allows trays to be off the sink bottom;
- consider cushioned material on the adjacent floor;
- set the height carefully to match your height and where your arms rest comfortably;
- make sure the edges are smooth and comfortable to lean on;
- a bar rail to rest one foot on is nice; and
- allow for a ledge to support hoses that can be used to move water to various parts of the sink .

I rest my trays on timber bathroom slats, also I adjusted them to sit flat in my sink whitch has a 1:60 fall.
Waterproofed my ply sink with water based pond paint, works fine.

 

[BHuij]

Over the past few days, I got construction finished on the sink, and am now in the throes of waterproofing/painting. One relatively thick layer of fiberglass resin to start on the bare wood. That stuff has some SERIOUS off-gassing, I'm really glad I am able to fit this sink through my darkroom door so I don't have to build it inside. I don't think my ventilation in the darkroom would have come close to being able to handle that many fumes.

After that was dry, I scuffed with 120 grit sandpaper and applied some Rustoleum marine enamel primer. The second and final coat is now drying. Tonight I'm hoping to get the first coat of final marine enamel paint (battleship gray color!) on top of that so it can dry overnight. Unclear on whether I'll need more than 2 total coats of paint, but I'm hoping I can put the sink to use as early as Saturday or Sunday. After the last coat of paint is dry, I just have to screw in the drain, and I may put a bead of clear DAP sealant along the corners and around the drain just as an extra insurance.

It's not pretty, but it's solid and I think it's going to work exactly as intended.

 

[MTGseattle]

The last little note I'll add. Don't get excited and rush the cure times on your finishes. Any finish "failure" I've ever had could be traced back to rushing the prep, or adding coats of whatever too quickly.

 

[BHuij]

Yes, impatience certainly could be my Achilles heel here. I will make sure I get full cures. I've been using a heat gun to speed things up, since average outdoor temps around here this time of year are in the 50s and 60s during the day.

 

[Don_ih]

I may put a bead of clear DAP sealant along the corners and around the drain just as an extra insurance.

I wouldn't use DAP for anything at all. If your drain has a top flange (as it should), you can get the regular plumbers putty to put under it. It remains flexible forever and is resistant to practically everything. Any caulking you put around the drain will fail and be very difficult to get rid of. If the putty fails, you take the drain out, scrape the putty out, put new putty, put the drain back.

 

[BHuij]

Well I promised to report back. I've been using the sink for 6 weeks or so since it finished. It's working well. Since it just sits up over the top of a bathtub, I didn't have to really plumb the drain. I just ran a hose from the drain down to a couple of inches above the tub floor so that it drains into there relatively quietly instead of splashing down 4 feet.

So far no issues whatsoever with the enamel. It stands up to water of course, and has also stood up to black & white film chemicals, black & white paper chemicals, E6, and ECN-2, without problems.

The one thing I missed having after this darkroom remodel (besides just putting this sink in, I also pulled out a toilet and pedestal sink to reclaim floor space, and built a proper stand for my enlarger), is a faucet. I pulled off my shower head and replace it with a Tygon hose that gives me mobility to put water anywhere I might want it in the sink. But I didn't have a way to anchor the hose somewhere for hands-free use, like washing my hands after a darkroom session. So I spent some time over the last couple of days modeling up, 3D printing, and assembling a little "faux faucet" that simply sits over the lip of the sink. It can slide laterally to reposition it, and the hose goes through a magnetic collar that can easily clip onto the "faucet" so it behaves like one. But I can also just grab it and use it as a hose when necessary. I'm pleasantly surprised with how well it worked on the first try; usually with projects such as this, I end up having to tweak and re-print parts to get proper fit and tolerances.

In any case, my darkroom feels like it really leveled up with a proper sink, among other things. Thanks all for your help and input that enabled me to put this together.

I'd post pictures, but I took a couple with my phone, resized them down to about 300kb each, and when I try to upload, I'm still getting an "uploaded file is too large" error from the forum.

 

[MattKing]

I'd post pictures, but I took a couple with my phone, resized them down to about 300kb each, and when I try to upload, I'm still getting an "uploaded file is too large" error from the forum.

Resize them to jpegs, 80 quality, 1000 pixels on the long dimension.

 

[BHuij]

Ah, it was a dimensions problem rather than a filesize problem. Thanks.

 

[MattKing]

That looks great.
The uploader is picky!

 

[BHuij]

Just by way of closing the loop here a bit, I've been using this sink extensively for nearly 11 months now with zero issues whatsoever. It has been really great to have a proper sink in there.

Reading through this thread, it appears there were many good ways to skin this cat. The one I went with may not be optimal for various reasons, but it was inexpensive and is working really well.