Sil-bronze Sink!

Yeah I'm pretty excited about this one. Really looking forward to seeing it finished. That pipe work is super nice.

 

Looks fantastic! Nice to see some Canadian parts...maybe some Great Lakes copper too?
I almost thought I'd see you bending pipe just to say you could. I had a good one with the building inspector when I did that one.

 

Don't get too excited about the Canadian parts just yet... Valve number one started dripping when it was open. It was fine when it was closed. After putzing with it a few times, I didn't notice anything obvious. So I pulled the guts out of it and the number 3 valve. Played switcheroo and the problem moved to number 3. So I'm not too peeved honestly. As long as I don't have to unsweat fittings, I don't really care. After all, this is why I bought these to change the guts later when they have an issue. Now let's see how their customer service is.

You know I do a lot of tube bending in HVAC work and I do own decent benders. Funny you say that, I actually did give it some thought. I used L pipe on this job, but if I do have to unsweat something, I'll do a bend just for you!

 

That is truly impressive job. Congrats

 

Just curious, where did you get those partition valves?

 

Rocco, Amre had them in stock.

Thanks Clay. I'm guessing this was over 50 joints! Yeah, I was surprised when it was dry as I never do soldier work. I'm a braze with sil fos guy. Too bad 1 valve has an issue.

 

Rocco, Noble has them too. Depending on what your discount is $30-40 cdn. Let me know if you need any...Amre is pretty good on pricing and stock too. Easy to set up an account to get discounts too. Picked up a brass shower pan drain there when no one else had them.
Jason, what are you using for your shower drain?

 

They both have locations not too far from me, I'll have to check them out sometime.

 

Good question. I've given it a little thought and kind of thinking will end up scratch building the entire thing out of sil bronze. Got any suggestions? I havent seen anything off the shelf yet and want to do a drain that's full length of the shorter wall. I see concrete work in my future. The bigger question will be either how to build and move the pan or weld in place. This sink with the drain collector installed is 50some pounds. Granted its 11ga. I'm kinda thinking to go thinner on the pan if I can support it properly with the right slope..

 

Here's the one I did out of copper:


I originally tapered the subfloor but that didn't work so I pre-sloped a bed out of ms-polymer (stp-silane terminated polymer) this one was fuze-it. Mixed it with water and sand to cure quicker. That way no reaction like between concrete and copper:

The pan itself was sloped to centre. As much as I like linear drains, I prefer in the shower when there's a centre slope as opposed to a 1/2" slope front to back or side to side with a linear drain. It would've looked odd with the copper walls sloping too.
From my testing there's a great bind with fuze-it (or similar) and copper/copper alloys. Brass drain. Need to cast a grate for the drain still.
Wait. Sorry this is your thread...

 

No worries at all. I'm happy to see it. It looks awesome! You bring up a good point about linear drains. That one will need more thought. For now, the rough estimate of my floor is 60x48 with a full length F bench on the back 60inch wall. I do have the option to go full 60x60, I just have to decide if I am willing to lose precious space in the garage. Now if I can stick my 60gallon air compressor up in the attic??? Hmm

I have to wonder what the smell is going to be like with all this much metal and hot water? Probably get out smelling like a penny? The green on my hands from this plumbing job finally wore off last night. When I do bronze chasing, I turn green all over from my ears to my toes. It's kinda funny to see green ankles. lol.

Did you ever check out this page?? https://www.diamondspas.com/kitchen-bath-collection/custom-shower-pans/

 

Still plugging along. The Dahl replacement showed up, so that problem is over and I'm nice and dry.
Medicine cabinets are built and lighting up. I went with USB plugs inside the cabinets and the lighting is on a switch that will shut off when the doors are installed.




Flashback to 2013, here is 500bucks worth of 18x18 travetine REJECTS from the kitchen.


And here is what 500bucks of 18x18 marble gets you in 2021. It took 2hrs digging through a pallet today
to come up with 26 respectable stones. At 8bucks a foot, I expect uniform thickness at a minimum. That's not the case.
Add in 8hrs of driving to get this small stack and I'm wiped out.
This will be enough for the wall and the floor.

 

I found a store called floor&decor. Better selection just zero help. Kinda like home depo.

 

Which one of you is a Tile Guru? This stone is mesh backed and I am looking for solid advice on sticking this heavy stuff to the wall. I will say the mesh is bonded very well to the back unlike some natural stone I've seen. I've never run epoxy before and rather not, but cant chance these falling off a wall. Fortunately, this is a dry location. I'm kinda of wondering if just priming with Ardex-4 and using my white large format natural stone mortar would be good enough? Found this unlisted video that explains this little known issue. I could grind the mesh off and not worry about it, but what fun would that be?

 

Sink update. The water is flowing and the sink works brilliantly. My door and drawer front maker is STILL shutdown due to stupid covid. I refuse to make those, well actually I could make them, but doing the paint work is something I'm not touching.

18x18 marble on 1/16" grout lines. These hazard fart suckem cups work good, but NEVER trust them! I primed the back of the stone with a couple of coats.
It made them very rough and grabby. Then it was regular marble mortar and up they went. 4 each day.




Ya gotta piss with the cock you got!


Good enough for this guy.







Ever try to match a granite or quartz to marble? HA! It sucks! If the color is too close, you look like you screwed up.
The alternative is to go much darker, but remember I have to slab a large shower with the same stuff and I don't want a cave.
Now look close in this next photo. See that whitish color block by the left faucet? That's a creamy color quartz with gold veins running through it.
That will be the countertop in 3cm and the shower will get 2cm slabs on the walls. Problem solved!
The brown hardboard here is the template for the countertop shop.





No leaks and the sink is starting to take on a really nice patina. But it has to come out once again for the countertop install.
While it's out, I'll give it a liver of sulfur bath. The only thing I wasn't really expecting is the slight smell of copper while brushing
one's teeth here. Actually, my wife says she doesnt really notice it, at least that's what I think she said when we were both standing
at it one night.


Here is the wood italian sconces I found in New Orleans. Originally designed for surface mount decorations, I made the adapter to
allow them to slip over the screws on the metal box installed in the wall. Do the words, "Does not convey" mean anything?



So that's about it for now. My local countertop guys won't return calls or give a quote for the work. They also don't deal with my quartz maker. I'm having to drive almost 4hrs for a quartz supplier. That means they will cut the full slabs and I get the joy of transporting, installing and figuring out how to stick this heavy shit to the walls. I'm ready to destroy the bath shower area, but am waiting to see what copper prices are going to do. I think when I built this sink it was around 700ish and today it would be over 1400. That means my shower just went from 3500 to over 7k! Add another 6k for 3 slabs of quartz and YIKES! I have to keep telling myself, I'm not paying some jackass to F my bathroom up. Only one person I trust on this job and it's me!

 

you could still do copper ...


Still in progress a year plus later...now I get to make a slide bar and handheld shower too...

Did you get the Brizo Litze shower bar?

 

Thats looking sharp. Bronze is actually a little cheaper than copper. But not by much. Plus it welds like butter.

I got the shower head, rain head and the spray thing on a hose. I didn't think about the bar. WHOOPS! I better check on that.
I think the shower will be almost 60x60 with a bench spanning the back wall. I'll put the thing on a hose next to it.
The plan is only a 28" glass section across the front, no door. Should be big enough not to need one.

 

Wish I knew where to get bronze here. All I get is "architectural bronze" which is brass. Supplier said they haven't had it in a while. Had to learn how to silver solder that door frame and threshold. Would've been so much easier to tig.
You're so right about casting bronze... Made a door handle and easily touched it up with TIG and a scrap of the casting.
Plan for a door just in case....all except one shower I did "without a door", I had to put one in later. Makes for a warmer shower.
I may have a shower head and slide bar for sale...

 

My shower area is pretty small actually, I'm planning on beefing up the fan/heater in there, so I hope we won't be cold.
In the states here, we really only have 2 options for large sheets of sil bronze. Atlas metals in Colorado and Farmers copper in San Antonio. I think there is a couple more, but that's what I've got to work with for me. The stuff is super expensive right now. I'm hearing it should start back down soon as the mills catch up. Fingers crossed.