The Birth of A Miniature Steampunk Kitchen Sink

Greetings folks!

A couple of you guessed exactly what I was making as my next project! Thanks so much for playing my little game.  I hope you didn't mind too terribly much?

As you know, I had decided to make two kitchen sinks for my Steampunk Kitchens.  This is the second of those two sinks, the "clean" sink.  My little occupants, (the Lightstone family, I have decided finally, after the intended exterior of the house!) live in a very old and grand home that has been upgraded to keep up with the times.  They made a very good decision to keep their old stone sink and add the new fangled, iron sink. This just made sense, since they had the room, and everyone knows that sinks are useful commodities, right?

What the Lightstones DIDN'T realize when they had the sink ordered was that they didn't really have room in the Scullery for the new fangled sink. (Here is the coverup for my change of heart!)   They ended up putting the new sink into the butler's pantry, since after all, it was a MUCH nicer sink, therefore, it deserved a nicer location.  They did have to give up some storage space, and the Butler now has to join the other servants in the main kitchen, but he has accepted the slight as he enjoys his new sink.

Original Sink Shape and Size

The truth of the matter is that I just could not make the original (smaller) sink work in the space I had allocated for it in the Scullery, so as any good miniaturist will do, I changed my story!  I have to admit, I am still not sure I will use this in the Butler's pantry, but I am sure I will find a very good use for it somewhere, yes?

The sink is not quite complete yet, I am waiting on a couple of pieces on order from Hobby Supply, but I thought there was enough in this post to go ahead, and I'll share the final product in place in one of the next few posts.

The Camera Picks Out the Ugliest Little Details!
RL?  Not a one of them to be seen!

You WILL have to forgive my sad sack photography skills.  I took over 300 pictures of this sink in it's nearly completed state, and I just could not get a decent photo.  I guess it is the semi-gloss finish combined with the black color that made it so hard to capture.  So you'll have to imagine the inordinate beauty of the final product.  I have no way to show it to you!  :0)

In this post I'll share how this went from contact packaging,

and plastic packaging, 

to Steampunk Iron Sink.

Obviously, the process started with cutting everything to size.  I am sure your powers of deduction were sufficient to allow you to figure that out on your own, yes?  :0)

I then slid the cut down plastic into the "slots" that were already in the contact packaging and glued the pieces together.  This provided me a "form" to work with that would help me shape the sink.

I cut the sink counter surface pieces to shape out of 1/4 inch wood, and added the sides of the sink which I had cut out of 1/32" wide mahogany lumber. 

The entire assembly was glued together to create the basic shape.

The sides were reinforced with wood pieces, as the 1/32" wood would easily break over time otherwise.

The form for the backing was just cut from a piece of Mountboard and taped to the back and the plastic piece at the bottom to support the form while it was in work. 

Now for the fun part!  My FIRST experience with Polymer Clay.  This was Sculpey III.  It was easier (and harder!) than I would ever have imagined.   If you have never worked with Polymer Clays, they make it sound much harder than it is!  I went into this with my heart in my throat, SURE I was going to do something wrong (and of course I did!).  

The "conditioning" that they talk about is nothing more than kneading the clay like bread.  When it comes out of the package, it is literally almost like stone, fairly hard and not pliable.  "Conditioning" is just kneading the clay until it becomes soft and pliable.  So why did I have my heart in my throat?  I guess I just wanted something to chew on.   Once the clay was conditioned, I rolled it out into flat pieces about 1/8" thick.

I covered the entire form with Polymer Clay a piece at a time.   Here, in hind sight, I left things too unfinished.  Note the somewhat bumpy surfaces I was left with?  Doing this again, I would spend more time on smoothing out those places, as they fire up in just about exactly the same shape, no real movement of the clay while being baked.  Little details that make a difference in the long run!

The clay formed piece was baked in the oven at 275 degrees for 25 minutes.  I kept peeking at the thing the whole way through because I was afraid I was going to burn it!

Prior to baking the polymer, I had tried to make impressions along the front of the sink, to create a pattern across the sink sides.   That was NOT successful.  I have more to learn, yea!  :0)  Because of that, and because of my lack of attention to detail on preparing the surfaces before baking, I needed to sand the surfaces smoother.  I was able to do that for the most part successfully, but the piece still has some "inelegant" lines due to my learning curve.

My next step was to add some additional details to create additional interest for the sink.  Above pictured is the beginning of that process.  The additional polymer shapes were added on top of the already baked sink form.  Here I have added an architectural detail at the back and am in the process of adding a lip along the sink front. 

This process was accomplished by rolling the clay into small ropes, and applying them along the area I was adding detail, and then sculpting them into shape with various polymer clay tools.

Here I am shaping the lip along the front of the sink.  This is a totally staged picture!  I am right handed, I would never be able to manage shaping anything using my left hand.  But we must  have pictures to communicate, yes? 

Once the addition of new details was completed, I again baked the piece to harden the clay. 

The entire piece was painted black using a semi-gloss spray. 

The little details that were added were all resin castings I made.  The linear details are half casts of dollhouse furniture legs, and the other two details are castings of findings I had in my stash.  This picture is an example of the ugliness I was getting with most of my pictures.  Every little jot and tittle, every errant brush stroke, and every imperfection stands out in all its gory detail.  I swear, it looks SO  much nicer in Real Life.  :0) 

There is more to do before this sink will be done.  I will add legs to the piece, and will be adding the faucets and other details that finalize it into a full fledged sink, but the legs are on order, and the faucets, I haven't yet decided whether I want to make or purchase.  I figured this post was long enough without making you wait longer and adding even more text to wade through!

Well, I am late getting started for work, because I am finishing this up.  So I better hang a close on the post and get on the stick!

Hope you all have a great day!

Doug