I bought a large sheet of pvc at my local plastics store and built my sink out of that using chemical welding glue. I made a 7.5 foot sink for about $120. It's an easy way to it and often the distributer will cut all the pieces for you
PVC has good acid resistance, at least in dilute form like stop bath, but, being glueable, is susceptible to acetone, high heat, etc. Sintra is similar, but generally stiffer, so better in that respect.
I have to buy 30% hydrogen peroxide with which to treat my well water as I have a lot of ferrous iron. I have been buying the H2O2 in a hydroponics store and have seen excellent plastic sinks, ventilation fans, pumps, filters, drying racks and large daylight LED arrays that could all be used by photographers, at very attractive prices. Any darkroom photographer who has never visited such a store would be surprised.
Haven't used them in the lab yet, but have seen them up close... Well made, sturdy, and inexpensive... Didn't see the drain connection, but these would need to be drained, so some provision would be there...
They come in different sizes, and useful sizes!!! I still had sinks, but would jump on these if/when needed...
Steve K
"Adapt, improvise, improve." was the motto of the excellent martial arts school based on the philosophy of Musashi and Bruce Lee where I trained. These stores have great ventilation stuff, like huge HEPA filters meant to keep the smell of the plants from leaving the building. You can hook them up the opposite way with the blowers they sell to create a super clean atmosphere in the darkroom with positive pressure. An easy and efficient way to drain the sink is to have it drain to a large bucket with a small sump pump or bilge pump inside. Then the discharge can go wherever you want through an ordinary garden hose.
Same here. My current sink was made by him. His sinks are essentially custom-made: he will build to your specifications. Mine required that I be able to fit 20x24 trays even though I seldom print on that size.
One note that may be of interest: flat sinks (like mine and some others made of aluminum) are not sloped to the drain. Consequently, you need to push/squeegee the water from the sides to the drain when you clean-up. The Delta sinks are sloped to the drain but the trays lay perfectly flat because the sink has ridges of the appropriate height running from the sides to the drain area. The reason I didn't buy the Delta is that they no longer make an 8ft sink.
For the DIY sinks and trays a simple 1 1/2 or 2" Hole Saw that fits your drill and a flange drain available at HomeDepot/Lowes will suffice. The flange fits under the sink so you have to seal plywood exposed for the hole. I built my 24x48 dry sink out of birch plywood and 1x6 standard pine and sealed it with fiberglass and epoxy. The fiberglass was overkill but useful for rounding the corners. I then painted it with a black rubber paint similar to what is now sold as Quick Seal. It has held up for about 7 years now. For stacking trays I have added a 24x16x4 riser that sits on the edges of the side wall and it gives me 9.5" clearance under it to work with multiple trays.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
http://www.searing.photography
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