Stone fabricators, I’m writing today to let you know how much I appreciate the techniques and materials that you keep using, despite their repeated failures, that keep me busy in the repair business.
Let’s start off easy shall we? Would it kill you to sell a more rounded edge at undermount sink cut-outs? That inexpensive “pencil edge” that you kick out the door to remain price competitive is a gold mine for me when it inevitably chips. At virtually every chip I repair, the pencil edge has smaller “chew marks”, usually along the front. I’m usually able to polish those away. One visit from me and the customers have paid what you would have charged to profile a ½” radius around the cut-out perimeter. You would have had the money instead of me, no chips and chew marks, a better product, and happier customers.
You can’t hold undermount sinks in place with polyestered stone scraps or wood shims bridging the sink flange and stone bottom; at least not for long anyway. Yes, silicone has some adhesive properties, but its function between the sink flange and the stone bottom is that of a gasket, not a bond. I’m not crazy about any of the insert style fasteners either. There isn’t enough room to install them along the front edge where they’re most critically needed and they can rust and fail. If I ruled the universe, all undermount sinks would be secured with a Hercules Universal Sink Harness (Braxton Bragg) or a Sink Strap or two from Regent Stone Products. They turn a sink into a truss, making one of the weakest areas of a countertop into one of the strongest and making sink replacement a one-nut job.
Of course, some of you are still using cold steel instead of stainless steel or fiberglass as reinforcement rodding at sink cut outs. You’re also bedding those rods in cheap polyester instead of more expensive and more water resistant epoxy. Your improper sink attachment dumps water on the rod. It rusts, expands, splits the top, and I get the call to fix it. That’s $700.00- $1,800.00 in my pocket. Thanks so much.
For the cost of one of my repairs, you could buy a Sink Hole Saver from Larry at Omni Cubed and quit rodding altogether. Please give it consideration.
You can’t cantilever a rounded bar top end 22” with ¼”x 3” x 13” aluminum screwed to the top of the pony wall on the flat.
Well, you can, but you’ll tear the stone when your inadequate supports allow deflection.
The aluminum doesn’t bend, but the wall plate flexes.
$35.00 worth of Home Depot brackets steel screwed to the wall studs are ugly as sin, but strong as hell and do not budge. For less than the $495.00 cost of this repair, this fabricator could have had 1” triangulated and powder coated square tube steel screwed to the sides of the wall studs.
