This is a pair of sink covers I made for my Brother-in-Law's boat. The boat came with a plain white set from the factory but one went overboard so the boat didn't look quite as pretty anymore.

These replacements were made from solid surface counter top material. I V-carved the letters and swirls and then filled them with solid surface adhesive.
It's the first time I've done this and I don't have the proper dispensing gun so I mixed the adhesive by hand.

The things I learned are:
1. The cream hardener sets up REALLY fast. By the time you're done mixing it's almost too late to get it in the work.
2. Mixing by hand adds MANY air bubbles.
3. Bubbles float to the top even in a quickly setting adhesive.
4. The adhesive shrinks a lot so you get a chance to fill the bubble craters.
5. If you mix the adhesive on a piece of nicely printed packaging the adhesive can pull some of the ink out of the packaging.
6. The ink might not show up in your fill job for a couple of months. Go figure.
7. Solid Surfacing cuts beautifully and finishes like a dream.

If you've never worked with Solid Surfacing do yourself a favour and give it a try. I get mine from a counter top friend of mine. I've carved a number of serving trays from it, added some text and some v-carved patterns and gave them to charitable events for silent auction fund raisers. I've also machined some stop blocks from it to use in the T-track slots on the Bot table.

Scott



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