Sink cut out

[eric6907]

Hi everyone

I'm opening a small fabrication shop. Currently I use 2 different fabrication shops to outsource our stone tops and keep out installation in house. No that we're doing 10-12 kitchen a week it's time for us to bring the fabrication in house also. So I would like any info on doing sink holes. I want to do them by hand for the initial drop then go back with a wood template with top bearing flush cutter and clean up from there. I have a couple experiences guys who can do them straight threw by hand but I rather have template guides to keep the consistency good. I've seen the most skilled fabricator even do a hole off slightly. To me consistency is a lot. Far as speed I know doing entire process by hand is the fastest way. Is there anything out there that I can go back and clean as prep for polish initial cut out with and still have a little speed ? Only thing I'm seeing is the SINK BULL. (Anyone have any input on that setup?) I come from doing Laminate and SS counters so I'm so use to the porter cable plunge routers and wood templates. Does any company's in the stone world have any comparable setup? Or and input on which route we should go. I looking into the radial arm machines and I see to much handling for going that route or a wizard. I rather try to stay with the grinder cut and the some sort of cleanup after that before polishing by hand. Any and all input is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[colin]

I started fabbing Corian and Avonite in IL back in 98. Started my shop in 04. Made the move to stone 7 years ago. We did the same as you are planning as far as sink cutouts are concerned. 1/2" mdf(far from ideal in wet environment) sink templates with bearing guided tool. The sink bull wasnt available back then. But I would have used it for sure. Put it it on a galeski contour cat and you will create perfect shapes. Probably plan on continuing to sub the majority of the jobs for the first while. 10-12 in house is gonna be a big leap from zero.

[wkluender]

X2. We actually retro fitted wood plunge routers and used that to shape the interior radii on sinks after we dropped the cutout. It's not the best option, but it worked. We tried using wood templates, but at that time it was really just me and occasionally another guy that shaped and polished our sinks, and after a year or so of doing it that way, we abandoned the templates, and just followed traced lines because it was faster for us.

[mark s]

Your best option, if you don't want to pull the trigger on a CNC*, is to get a template following machine like the Park Wizard and then purchase the UHMW (ultra-high molecular weight) plastic templates from Braxton Bragg. The templates are pretty much indestructable and are already properly sized with centerline marks and faucet holes included. With a wizard and template a guy with one weeks training on how to polish can make a perfect sink in about 1/2 the time most people can do one freehand.

You can also do complex arcs and fancy corners with a wizard if you have throw away wood templates made by someone with a wood router. I got my shop to just over 1.5M in sales with a wizard and templates.

* at 10-12 kitchens per week you are past the point where a CNC should pay for itself in labor savings and additional capacity, particularly if you find a good used one and get tooling and vac pods as part of the deal.

My 2 cents

[Terry Roberts]

Penske Solid Surface sells a sink hole cut out hole tool that connects to a Porter Cable router.

https://pinske-edge.com/shop/cutting-an ... e-cutout-t

You can make a template for any sink in a few minutes with reveal options form 1/4" to flush. The design uses a non spinning follower so you can't scar the sink. Place the sink upside down on the plywood or plastic template material and secure it. Turn it over and drill a hole in it so the router bit fits through then push the router to follow the sink and you have a perfect template for any type of sink. Then you trace the template on to the stone and rough cut close to the line. Now use the Sink Bull. Start to finish polished it takes about an hour for a double bowl kitchen sink and 40 minutes for a standard oval bath sink. You can train anyone in your shop to use this method and get great results.

[eric6907]

Making templates out of SS or Plastic is not a problem. I just invested in a Weeke Vantech CNC router. Making that transition for manual to automated over the last year have been quite the ride and it's still not over. We're still adapting to the whole process but for the most part it has been a great investment. It's used for our custom cabinet division, and occasionally for multi housing P-lam tops that are cookie cutter when our P-lam countertop shop is backed up. We can dxf the sink specs and tweak them to whatever overlay the customers desires far as making our own templates. Also we would like to do our island sweeps and archs and custom curves the same way. my whole reasoning on doing with template and not by hand. So we can train less experienced guys to adapt to our system we come up with and feel comfortable with. Instead of us adapting to highly skilled Fabricators who pretty much are set in there ways. A wet CnC is out of the picture for now at least until we get up and running for at least a year or two until the whole manual process down to a science and I feel comfortable with the whole in house fabrication process. If that CNC goes down you always have to have a backup. The parks wizard is nice also but having 3-4 sets up at once seems to me like it would be more going back and fourth to the wiz than production. I'm definitely leaning towards trying the sink bull or a medium duty router we can put top bearing bits in. Also I want to set up at least 2-3 of them with different grit bits. Having a mobile router would be better in my thoughts. Keeping the process simple as teaching the new guys pick up router1 then 2 then 3. Then start polishing. It seems to be me when you have processing like that it makes things lest complicated and streamlined. I really appreciate all the feed back from everyone. Hopefully within 2 weeks we should be up and running. So I still have a few days to figure it out and have the shop fitted up for whatever we decide to go with. Our saw is getting installed this week coming. All the trenches and the clean out pits are being finished up tomorrow.

And yes I still will be having our current fab shops still doing majority until we are fully comfortable from start to finish.

Networking is the key to success in any business or trade.

I'm assuming when you fitted the Porter Cable routers you were cutting dry ? How did that go for you guys ? And which model PC were you using ?

[dbiel]

I am also looking for the most efficient means of supplementing my CNC's .The vanity sinks always seam to be the bottleneck.I have a museum of sink cutting machines from the last 8 years including Scorpion ( did not come with sink templates),countour cut,Anthrax hydraulic bowl cutter and of course grinding by hand.I need to keep this a wet process for obvious reasons.I tried Braxton -Bragg and could not find any precut sink templates.I had talked to someone regarding the Red Ripper but they also had no source for sink templates.
A few related questions
IS there a significant difference between the scorpion and the Fab king ?
Is it more productive to bring a template to the part and then do by hand ,or bring the part to a machine ( scorpion) and drop and polish at machine?
If bringing template to part works for you ,how do you drop sink and then how do you finish?And which system works best for you ?
Anyone care to share how long an oval vanity from start to finish takes them?
Thanks for the thread
And thanks in advance for any feedback

[Dan R.]

We use a Ghines Systematica cnc bowl cutter. It is a very small cnc router that cuts & polishes bowls.

Call Eddy @Infinity Diamonds. They are SFA Guardian sponsor.

We will be hosting an open house to show our's off later in the Spring. Everyone is welcome.

[eric6907]

I'm definatly decided to go with the sink bull and I will let everyone know how it turns out.

Dbiel -Only thing I could suggest is making templates from one of your current CnCs out of double layer SS (1" thick ) if the vacuum can't hold the single 1/2 sheet.
Take 2 whole sheets and glue them very well spreading the adhesive throughout the whole sheet clamp and weigh it down. now you have a nice solid 1" sheet and get your sink files to your machine and make your own. I say you get 4 templates out of 1 sheet.

I don't know how well the SS would work with a wet CNC and the whole vacuum pod setup my guess it should.

If that fails find a local SS shop and ask if they could make the templates for you for all the main popular sinks you use.

For different sinks the Pinsky jig Terry posted the link for is a great setup for making you own also. I'm actually going to purchase that just to see how well it works for myself.

[Terry Roberts]

I started out using a regular router bit with a metal top chaser bearing but kept scarring sinks from the top bearing. I even duct taped the rim of the sink to protect it but still every now and then it would still scar. I tried nylon chaser bearings an although they worked better they had a similar result. That tool from Penske was a bargain at $300

[Alex V.]

I bought a sink bull and I love it. When the cnc is busy I can put a rookie on a sink with a corian template and he has it done in no time.

[BUCKEYE]

I think your well past even thinking about doing 10-12 kitchens manually with no experience. Cnc all the way in my opinion. I do less then half that a week and can justify it. Your gonna kill yourself being all manual and starting out.....

[Teef]

we lance or plunge cut all sinks other then oval vanities on our bridge saw. cut to the radius of the sink then move it over .75" do 3 cuts on all four sides. then just mill the corners and polish. we are getting a cnc in a few week ive done sinks this way for over 10 years. started doing them that way with a accuglide rail saw. may not be the fastest but its not dusty and the lines are straight. I do 10 a week with 6 guys including installers. so good luck as a start up its gonna be an expensive learning curve with no experience. buy all of the omni products and use them religiously!! that will save lots of broken tops.

[EvaWurm]

I got the same problem!

[Alex_Bores]

There are many cost effective machines that you can find at discounted prices! (compared to anew cnc)

Something like this comes to mind for a shop like yourself that is just getting started...

https://youtu.be/o7N3k85sQd4

[Mtodd62406]

I'm not sure if you'll need them with the machine your looking at but we have about 50-60 wood sink templates that we don't use anymore since going automated if you or anyone else are interested in purchasing them.