Waterproof sink from wood

hello folks

A good mate of mine wants to build a kitchen sink from timber - I suggested TEAK but he would like to try making one from an Australian species timber .... I thought the boat building forum might be a place to begin. The style of sink is what's known either as a: Fireclay, Butler's, Farmer's or Belfast sink. See pic. My main concern is that over time the joins will either fail or the timber is go all scummy from the treatment it will receive with hot water, food scraps, scrubbing and chemicals....but who am I to deny an Aussie the right to have a go!

:D:D:D

Huon pine is a popular Australian timber for sinks.

I've used huon and teak.

The huon sinks were left raw and the teak ones were laquered with two pack inside and sheathed on the underside with epoxy and double bias glass cloth to make them more robust.
Don't know how durable they'd be with everyday heavy use as these were made for boats. Looked very glamourous, but it was show pony stuff.

You could use any seasoned, fine grained wood that glues up well .

Kauri should be ok

I reckon macrocarpra would work too

thanks for the responses folks - here are a couple of pics .... these are responsible for starting him on this trek ....

One of my boatbuilding friends has made vanity tops for his bathroom and kitchen tops out of MDF. To these he gives a minimum of three coats of boatbuilding epoxy on all surfaces - more if it is still sucking up - so that it gets at least two solide coats after it stops sucking up. He sanded them with a fine Wet and Dry to make them matte and that's it. 6 years later and it looks great.

While I wouldn't be suggesting MDF for a boat it does indicate the difference the epoxy makes if a careful job is done.

Almost all timber starts staining or moving if water gets in - breaking down the surface and cracking glue joins and worse - and properly applied epoxy will prevent that reliably.

If used in an area subject to UV light then you need to paint or varnish over the top.

More information here - see precoating ply for details of labour saving when coating.
http://www.storerboatplans.com/Faq/faqindex.html

Best wishes MIK