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Joe Corlett
06-04-2008, 02:55 PM
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q186/Trebruchet/06_04_22.jpg

This is what happens when your customer picks up a hot crock pot without adequate heat protection. She drops it into the polyester sink you installed three years ago and calls you to come out and fix it.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q186/Trebruchet/06_04_32.jpg

It’s a lot easier to remove a faucet and air switch by breaking out the bowl to get access to the nuts than lying on your back in the cabinet and working upside down. I cut the bowl freehand parallel with the deck with a ¼” router bit to avoid cracking the top before I whacked it. Yeah, some guys brag that they don’t have to remove faucets to replace a bowl, but on this job you do.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q186/Trebruchet/06_04_41.jpg

I can’t believe I’m showing this repair of my screw-up in front of everybody. I must have not had the hold-down lever all the way down on my Festool router, because when I got to the corner, I was an 1/8” into the deck! Of course there is no cutting board or drop for an easy repair piece. Of course this is a cove splash job, so no easy splash steal.

I removed the 30” x 25 ½” top between the stove and refrigerator and with the cove at the fence, pushed the whole thing through my portable table saw, getting a 1/8” x ½” x 30” repair piece. I put the vac line on my belt sander and tapered the long edge by hand. After I glued the sink in place, I glued and stuffed the repair piece into the gap.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q186/Trebruchet/06_04_72.jpg

Considering I had to mix some closely-colored estone bonder in a baggie to extend the exact color-match adhesive that I had, it didn’t turn out too bad. The customers are happy, but then they screwed up the sink in the first place.

The more repairs I do, the more I’m finding out that customer expectations are in absolute inverse proportion to who screwed things up. If the kid’s battery charger acid etches Mom and Dad’s $12,000.00 estone top and splash, a little flowing epoxy looks pretty good. If Momma drops a crock pot through the sink and she gets it fixed for under a grand, she is happy. However, should I deliver a vanity with a nearly-invisible hairline crack at the rim, its squawk, squawk, squawk. Geesh.

Joe

Joe Corlett
06-04-2008, 03:02 PM
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q186/Trebruchet/06_04_61.jpg

This is the finished job. (Kevin, the four-picture max rule should be changed.) The replacement bowl was about a 3/16" smaller than the original opening (before I screwed it up). I just put a 36 grit on the Festool on the grind mode and ground 'er flush.

Joe

SFEditor
06-05-2008, 12:14 PM
Consider the rule changed, post away on the pictures...

SFEditor
06-09-2008, 10:03 AM
Apparently it is tougher to change the photo rule than I originally thought...I guess the rule stands.

sorry about that