Thanks guys.
Today was epic and if it wasn't for Ben's help it would have been an epic disaster but because of his help it turned into an epic success. Sadly, there's no photos during what was the most stressful and difficult part of the day - the large sheet of 10' laminate going down because it was one calamity after another.
The trouble started with putting on the side strips first - like you're supposed to. Except that I'd put glue down on the whole top and sides. It was dry but the trimmer I used spewed chips everywhere. Then I switched bits but forgot that we'd been using a piece of laminate to ride the sole plate on and the bit gouged the edge. Only I didn't realize it until we'd placed the top. We then had to pull the top, pull the side, flip the side, retrim and then re roll the top. Then Ben noticed the other side had a mistake too. He's really got a knack for that.
Anyway, it was sort of one disaster after another and I was ready to throw in the towel but Ben convinced me we could save it and he was right.
So here's Ben rolling the underside of the counter on the seating side - post drama. I figured with two little kids the easier it was to clean under the counter the better so let's put laminate under the counter too.
Sadly you don't get to see any shots of how the Karran sink is done. Basically you glue it up like normal but one inch back from the sink edge you run a bead of a special epoxy. Once that's had time to harden you cut out the laminate in the sink with a router.
The router was bumping all along the edge and it just didn't seem right but you couldn't see why until the whole thing was cleared and then it was obvious - epoxy had oozed out and onto the lip of the sink. As Ben said, "Hmm, I'll be it didn't look like that in their video." Umm, nope.
After about 20 minutes of gently prying the hardened epoxy off the edge (it broke off fairly easily and didn't stick to the stainless) we got a clean edge and progressively plunged the router .5mm deeper for successive passes using a tapered cutter with an oversize bearing.
And arrived at what the goal was when I first saw this sink - a zero edge join between the laminate and the stainless that looks very cool.
Phew! I am tempted to plunge deeper to put a bit more taper on the edge but as Ben suggested I'll do that on the other sink first so as to not screw up the main one. In fact the idea was that I do all my testing on that sink but that sort of went out the window.
After everyone left I pulled out my box of plumbing parts and started fitting them together in a way that would give me the most room for drawers under the sink. I hate under sink spaces as they're always a big mess so I'm determined to use drawers, even if they have to be shallower, so as to better use the space.
Next I wanted to get the faucet in so I spent a lot of time measuring since I would only get one chance to do it right or I would ruin... well, everything, let's face it, just everything, if I were to screw it up.
I didn't.
I'm very happy with the plumbing so far. Because the sink is in a peninsula and not on a wall you have to use an AAV (air admittance valve) to let air in so the sink can drain. I'm allowed three by code and I'm using all three (main sink, bar sink and laundry). I have to say that I'm almost considering making this back panel of the counter removable so as to allow easy repairs if needed. It probably wouldn't be much trouble to screw it on and hide the screws under the top and a toe kick. I could go all racer and attach it with 1/4 turn Dzeus fasteners. Maybe even those cool pin and post fasteners on hot rod hoods. That might help bring it back around to the garage side.
I'll have to think about it.
Anyway, thanks to Ben I'm back on track and have a much better attitude. Thanks Ben!!
Gregor