Darkroom sink material

[r.a.young]

Has anyone had any experience trying aluminum sheet to make a sink or are there

specific reactions with chemicals?

[leicaglow]

I know aluminum corrodes, and I would think there's a good reason why it's not used in tanks and other tools.

[thirteenthumbs]

Aluminum reacts with film and print chemicals and will stain photographic materials.

[tripanfal]

A homemade sink made of plywood and coated with boat building epoxy will be fine. I made mine with wood, epoxy, fiberglass and painted it with automotive paint. Overkill...

 

a lot of people make a sink with plywood, caulk the seams, and paint with bottom paint for boats.

[larrydressler]

I got a stainless steel one at a surplus place for $10.00 works great.

Also salvage yards have them by the ton check out a few.

[patrick_gainer]

Flake board would work as well as plywood. Treat it like an inside-out boat.

[aplumpton]

Aluminium and plain steel are not good choices (corrosion). I bought a 4 foot

by 9 foot sheet of stainless steel (normal quality type 316) and had a local

backyard welding and sheet folding shop make up a nice 8 foot by 27 inch

sink with high sides (forward side with an albow resting surface). Good for up

to 20 x 24 inch trays but not 24 x 30. The total cost was about 500$ and I don't

regret it (commercial sinks were well over 1000$). My plain steel drain fittings

are corroding and will need to be replaced sometime.

 

As mentioned, you can probably buy much more cheaply a similar type of sink

at photo stores dealing in once-owned equipment or at some scrap yards or

house reno recycle stores.

[Bob K]

Aluminum is not a player. Made a plywood sink and coated with epoxy paint. I used regular caulk, bad choice use marine epoxy caulk. For the price of the materials, you can buy a 8 foot plastic from any online photo vendor. This cheaper than 316 stainless and works just as well.

 

Bob

[keithostertag]

I have had good luck with plywood with ordinary glossy polyurethane and good quality silicon caulk- no need for marine epoxy paint or caulk, or are you planning to have water and chemistry sitting in the sink 24/7?

[r.a.young]

Thank you to everyone for your input. It looks like I'll be going with the plywood and epoxy since I was going to use plywood to support the aluminum anyway.

[winfried_buechsenschuetz1]

Aluminium is very stable when exposed to air since it is almost immediately covered with a (very thin) layer of aluminium-oxide which prevents further oxidiziation and corrosion. Anyhow, when exposed to chemicals which affect this layer aluminium is everything but chemically inert (inert = does not react easily).

 

Many years ago I worked with a contract engineering company, and for prototypes we used to etch our own pc boards. Some day we had strange blobs on the surface of the exposed and developped boards. It finally turned out that our mechanic had used a piece of aluminium for stirring the soup. Developping film is a quite different story but there is quite a risk that aluminium will affect the process.

[profhlynnjones]

For use in stainless steel, I spent some of my early years in the original Calumet which made 75% or more of all the stainless steel sinks trays and processors. We use several hundred thousand pounds of SS yearly and I can tell you that for photo use, avoid everything except AISI 316 or 316L (and it is very expensive) or Carpenter CB 20 (also very expensive).

 

Christopher's advice is very good, make it with plywood, smooth the edges and corners. Paint it with epoxy boat hull paint, nothing else will work for this purpose. I've made lots of stuff this way and it will outlast me.

 

Lynn