The "cook" was not happy with our Escalade RV sink from the beginning. She observed that it was too shallow and the individual bowls were small. Understand, she loves to cook and the center island and all that extra kitchen storage was testament to our RV selection that supports this love ! In early 2009 we looked around in an attempt to find a deeper single bowl replacement that would fit. Due to the uncommon size of the RV sink, and space limitations we found nothing!

In October we were again talking of the sink. She proposed another look... to see what could be found? This time we struck pay dirt ! The Blanco #441024 came to market in late 2009 (early 2010). It is 28 x 18 x 9 deep and made to be under mounted. This meant that the sink could fit between the faucet set and the inside edge of the cabinet structure and it is only a bit wider. It was a go !  See results picture below... See project described below pictures.....

The project began by removing the old double bowl sink. This sink was really designed to sit on top of a counter, but was installed underneath, held in place by plywood squares that had been glued to the solid surface (Corian) counter with blocks over the sink corners held by screws into the plywood. The sink calking had some leaks and several of the plywood squares were in bad shape. We first removed the drains connection, then the screw-blocks and gently pried the sink away from the calking. (See above photos of open counter top and bare sink following removal)

After review, we decided to completely remove all the old glued plywood blocks as they were going to interfere with the new sink pattern and really were too thin for good screw holding. A scraper and wood chisel made short work of the plywood. One long front plywood piece was installed partially between the cabinet frame and the counter. After removal, we placed several small plywood pieces between the cabinet frame and counter, wood glued in place, to give continuous support for the counter top.

The Blanco sink is supplied with a cutout pattern. We decided not to get closer to the faucet than the existing cutout and placed masking tape on the counter where we were going to draw around the cutout pattern. After tracing the cut-out pattern onto the counter, we cut away the unwanted counter material using a fine tooth metal cutting blade in a saber saw. Little material was taken from each side while about an inch was removed at the front. This change in counter width in front of the sink can be readily seen in the photos and results in no real loss of flat space; a good tradeoff.

We took great care with the cutout as we had to finish edges by hand. We used #400 & #600 wet-dry sandpaper working with a sanding block on the "mostly straight" edges and an empty round pill bottle wrapped with sandpaper in the corners. Carefully finishing with worn, #600 worked wet, yielded the necessary smooth finish to edges and radiuses which gave us a better finished cut-out than the first factory version which had noticeable flat spots?

To support the new sink we relied upon two new wood supports we made and silicon adhesive. The wood supports ran from the front to the rear of the cabinet parallel to the ends of the sink, pressing the sink lip against the bottom of the counter. These supports were made from clear 1 x 3 material, cut so as to compress only the sink flanges against the counter and were vertically screwed at each end to the cabinet frame. This design had the advantage of good strength, while allowing the sink to sit in-position while a bead of silicon was placed on the rim before simply screwing the sink tight against the counter. We were careful to sand and clean the underside of the counter where the silicon would bond. See one corner photo below.

After a 16 hour cure we installed new drain plumbing making use of the old parts where possible. Following a leak check, the completed installation was turned over to the "cook" who was all smiles. The cost of materials was about $225 including the sink at about $200. The quality of the Blanco sink proved to be excellent. Incidentally, It weighted more than double the old as it was larger and made from thicker stainless steel. /

Questions or comments ? Email john@nobe.net [ UPDATE: April 2014 sink doing well... no leaks ! ]