Plop-N-Run

[Kowboy]

Some guys in the stone business don’t deserve the title of “Installer”. More appropriate would be “Plop and Runner” ‘cause that’s what they do. Plop the tops down and run out the door. Fortunately, adhering stainless steel sinks with polyester and wood shims, leaving appliance ends unfinished, not leaving enough appliance clearance and failing seams make work for me:





Big gobs of polyester supposedly hold the seam together. Right.

This is the completed seam. It’s a good color match but a proper repair would have required pulling the eight-foot long peninsula with sink, utilizing a Seam Phantom, reinstalling the top and reseaming. I was at three-quarters of a day as it was; they didn’t have the budget for that.

The seam got gradually wider as it came from the wall. The plop-‘n-runners narrowed it as much as possible, but they quit when the farthest end of the peninsula was hanging ¾” more over the eight-foot run of cabinets than in the corner.



This is a photograph of a restaurant tabletop in Geneva, IL. It’s painted MDF, or should I say it’s flaking painted MDF. As the table gets wiped, the moisture swells the MDF and the paint pops off. Disgusting. As we traveled up route 59 from Joliet to West Chicago last weekend, we passed at least three granite shops. You guys have got some work to do.

Joe

[JPS]

[topshop]

I dig those sink stilts.

[Anna Almonte]

WTF

[Adriana]

Awesome vein match there...

PS: What happened to the barf smiley?

[Joe Little]

aweful, but I'm a ittle confused. Looks kinda photo shopped, two shot of the same seam, one with a wall and one with a sink cut-out
Terrible none the less

[Stone Dude]

aweful, but I'm a ittle confused. Looks kinda photo shopped, two shot of the same seam, one with a wall and one with a sink cut-out
Terrible none the less

youre right, it is the same exact seam. the second of the two pictures shows some missing cabinetry on the lower left. plus the backsplash is missing in one of the photos but the shadow is still there.

WTF Kowboy?

[CustomMarbleGraniteToo]

It looks like a bad PS job to me..

[Kowboy]

aweful, but I'm a ittle confused. Looks kinda photo shopped, two shot of the same seam, one with a wall and one with a sink cut-out
Terrible none the less

youre right, it is the same exact seam. the second of the two pictures shows some missing cabinetry on the lower left. plus the backsplash is missing in one of the photos but the shadow is still there.

WTF Kowboy?

Cameron:

The only alterations I did to these phone pics was to rotate them for easier viewing and shrink them for easier posting. It's all I can do to operate my computer, let alone Photoshop a picture.

Joe

[Matt Lansing]

Looks to me like a piece of cardboard or a board of some sort in the sink cutout to control the overspray from the surface polishing.

[Kowboy]

I dig those sink stilts.

Dave:

Those "sink stilts" were installed by the handyman the homeowner hired to install the sink after it failed. The handyman adhered the sink with some blue adhesive and silicone between the sink and stone where exposed. I pulled the "stilts" and installed Braxton Bragg's sink harness. The sink harness is designed to be initally installed before the sink in order to get the attachments high enough to make contact with the sink bottoms. I had to cut a "stilt" into blocking and install it between the harness and small sink to get enough tension for it to function.

The original fabricators had a polyester filled fissure which had yellowed at the sink. The homeowner managed to extend the fracture when heating the granite to remove the old sink adhesive. I was able to vibrate some Superior acrylic into the crack. It couldn't be felt at completion.

Joe

[Kowboy]

Looks to me like a piece of cardboard or a board of some sort in the sink cutout to control the overspray from the surface polishing.

We have a winner! The "missing cabinet" is a bunch of paper towel pinched in the tip-out.

Joe

[Stone Dude]

It looks like a wall, and I REALLY looked at it....on my 7" netbook

[politefab]

in the photo with the sink it looks like you can see splash on the rite side making it look like there is no wall at first glance.

i hate seeing work like that.

[Dan R.]

The blue adhesive was ore than likely gasket material (comes in a tube) used in the automotive industry.

[Omni Cubed Larry]

It is kind of sad, but I always laugh when I see these awful install jobs!
...
Does that make me a bad person?

Nah.

[Omni Cubed Larry]

This needs to go into the new hall of shame.

[Joe Little]

Sorry, Joe. I see it now, just looked off at first glance

[Nick]

Looks to me like a piece of cardboard or a board of some sort in the sink cutout to control the overspray from the surface polishing.

Correct, I spotted that. Kowboy may be the devil, but he isn't a liar

[Adriana]

I was at three-quarters of a day as it was; they didn’t have the budget for that.

That is probably what irks me most about the state of the stone industry now. Some people expect a brand new Mercedes Benz when they only have the budget for a used TATA Mobile.

The stone in those pictures needed a load more skills than that hack possessed, but yet the homeowner accepted poor craftsmanship just to have that color. Given to a proper fabricator, that material probably should have fetched 3 or 4 times what they eventually paid for it (minus of course the fixes that were added on later, but even then...)

It is something we try and tell our prospective customers every time. If you have a budget, pick a material that would fit it, and if they do go with the lowest bidder, be sure to add some money in there for repairs and general aggravation.

[ash20ash]

Joe,

No wonder "your customers love you". You just have to be one step better than the hacks

The stilts are the bomb too

[Nick]

Chris,

Joe is perfectly apt at doing his repair work and I don't think that it is fair to say he is one step above a hack. It is fair to say I wouldn't want to be a customer and have to hear his self rightous monologue upon seeing him seeing the bad work , but it completely uneccessary and wrong to flat out knock his work for no reason.

[ash20ash]

Didnt knock his work.
Obviously he is "apt" to restore these types of things.

It just all makes since now. Repairing painted c-tops might be a good gig?

[Kowboy]

Repairing painted c-tops might be a good gig?

Chris:

My nephew just moved into an apartment that has a freshly coated plastic laminate bathroom vanity top. It looks like some sort of epoxy. The caulk line around the drop-in bowl is nearly as bad as the painted MDF pictured earlier. While uglier than sin, it appears to be functional. I'll get a pic the next time I visit.

I've got some epoxy left from coating my garage floor. Maybe you're on to something here; there are several hundred apartments in his complex.

Joe

[t-mobile]

Looks to me like a piece of cardboard or a board of some sort in the sink cutout to control the overspray from the surface polishing.

Im late, but I noticed it when I read the post.
day lat and a dollar short.




That is some heelarious work! I love the blotches of akemi yeah, that'll hold it bubba!!



Even though I still dont like kowboy 80% of the time, I know he is very capable at producing good work!