jacksopcam, Having lived with copper sinks for several years and a lot of friends of mine have them as well, my comments: 1) Yes, a thicker 14 gauge sink makes a BIG difference. I've seen them in the thinner 16 gauge and they dent fairly easily. I have a friend who bought a thinner gauge sink on Ebay and ended up returning it and buying the thicker gauge sink. When I was looking it came down to two companies selling the thicker 14 gauge sinks - Copper Sinks Online and Linkasink. Since Linkasink was sold through showrooms, they were 30% - 40% higher (they have to make a profit too). If you are willing to spend the money on one of these beautiful sinks, buy wisely. 2) Rachiele can make a claim that they sell the only "maintenance free" copper sink, but they make a lot of claims... Copper is copper (unless you buy a copper sink made in China or India - then who knows that is mixed in with the copper...). 3) We do not wipe our sink out - ever. ...we just let it do it's thing. The patina will change slightly over time and sometimes we leave something in it that lightens up the patina in spots - but it always darkens again (like a penny) and we love the rustic nature. We simply clean with soap and water and about once a month we wax it with the stuff we got from Copper Sinks Online. If you pour something really acidic down the sink - just rince it out with water. 4) It is easy to try and price shop copper sinks and think that by buying that $800 sink from the Ebay dealer you are saving money. These sinks have big quality differences between them. Remember, these are crafted by a copper artisan. I was told it takes almost a full day for a craftsman to make one kitchen sink! As with any artisans, there are good ones and not so good ones. What I liked about the company we bought from is that they seem to be one of the largest out there and have been around the longest. They have their own artisans making their sinks. If there is an issue with quality - you just return it. 5) Several Ebay dealers try to mask this, but they are selling out of Mexico. If you want to return the sink, you could be in for some major hassles. To me, it is best to deal with a company that has offices and a warehouse in the USA IMHO. I can't find the posts in the archives (a lot of history was wiped out on this site), but about a year ago there were at least 6 - 7 folks that chimed in one thread about how they loved their copper sinks and there was a big discussion about where to buy, thickness, etc. Bottom line is that every person I've spoken with or who has posted on this site that has bought from Copper Sinks Online has been very happy not only with the company but their products. Hope this info helps.

What a fun thread. I'll just bump it mostly for the opportunity to laud and thank CP. Wow. I must certainly be caring for my family's health because I am contemplating buying a copper sink. As if the price tag weren't discouragement enough, I will stay very, very far away from el creeeeeepy Rachieeele now. I, too vaguely remember that ad from my youth. It was as creeeeepy then as it is now. Geesh. So yeah -- copper is copper. It's pretty, it's relatively good in the cleanliness department when not gunked up with a sealer (no doubt precisely due to its oxidating patinating qualities -- btw, I don't know about the cleanliness properties of copper but I do know some about ss having worked once for a company that manufactured a product marketed to hospitals and other industrial purposes for cleaning the ss. The take-home message was, no one's ss is clean; to get an operating room clean-enough requires unbelievably scary-strong chemicals and this only lasts very briefly. Your kitchen sink is absolutely certainly scary-gross (as in unhealthily so, regardless of how much you love your children). And your countertop is too, regardless of whether you smear the microbes around immediately after deposition. Them's the breaks. Bugs happen and btw, they're winning...) So my question is: what's wrong with a Mexican sink if you can be sure it's not got a sealer on it? I'm just talking small vessel here, so it's not like it has to withstand a lot of weight or be made to avoid gaposis . Is this just garden variety xenophoblia that causes people to steer away from Mexican copper? Because it's my impression that there are some pretty fine Mexican copper artisans and my only real regret is not being able to jet down there to interact with one in person. I may try to check out this place as a consolation prize. Can anyone suggest to me some pitfall I might encounter here or some pointed, probing question I should ask in order to insure adequacy? Maybe, should I ask about the purity? Do I care? What's wrong with using recycled copper? Sounds like a good thing to me?! And for that matter, do I really even care if there's a light brown copper sink finish? Eventually it will fail, then it will be slightly more splotchy than usual for a period of time so short I, in my insensitive glory, will barely notice. I don't know about the rest of you, but a year lasts an eyeblink around here. So my question is: if I don't care about blotchiness or unevenness in patina, at least temporarily, perhaps I can even live with a "light finish" too, eh?

There is a somewhat different mindset when using a large signature sink as compared to the small double bowl kind. Being able to do all the prep work in the sink instead on the counter keeps things a lot neater, encourages washing the cutting board (because it's right there in the sink), and reduces the amount of counter cleaning needed by 90%**. If our kitchen was larger, I'd add another 12" or 16". At 42" there is enough room for the cutting board and the bowl/colander holder side by side, with a few inches to spare so that you can, somewhat carefully, rinse small items (tomato cans, hands, etc.) and not splash onto the board or into the bowl, but there isn't enough room to also rinse out a pan or easily drain the pasta water. (Okay, this last hasn't been a particular problem for me because by the time the pasta water needs draining, the prep work is complete, but it might be if you are cooking several courses.) To have a small sink for filling with water (for rinsing a large amount of veggies, etc.), there is an inset (add-a-bowl) that can be placed on the sink ledges. I don't use this often because there is normally only two of us, but when cooking for a crowd, it's very handy. ** Doesn't cut down on cleaning the baking table (shown below).

Well, blow me down! That looks familiar! I used to trade stuff that I had done or had in my stash to a local shop here in Maine. When I saw this years ago, I just had to have it. It's in my basement still looking just like this. I've reach the point where if something comes upstairs, something else has to leave. Needless to say, I HIGHLY approve of your 'vanity', and tat beautiful faucet!