Replies

1. 
   ErnieConover | Mar 20, 2007 02:01pm | #1

   I may be dating myself by this discourse but so be it. You are confusing two distinct periods of history. Dry sinks are a 17th and early 18th century phenomena. They were simply an enclosure to hold a wash bowl and water picture and often included cupboard space for shaving kit and other accoutrements. Dry sinks are furniture, stand alone and are moveable.

   You are describing a wet sink which is a 19th Century happening. And yes, they were still around in NE Ohio when I was a boy. They were quite common in northern New Brunswick, Canada where my grandfather came from. I used to think manning the pump in his sister’s kitchen quite the privilege. While wet sinks were porcelain latter in the 19th Century, early ones were tin plated steel or zinc sheeting and locally made. The pump sat to the right of the sink and the spout just over hung the basin. Such hand pumps are still made and can be purchase from Lehman’s Hardware in Kidron, OH. The URL is http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemID=881&itemType=CATEGORY&path=1%2C2%2C681%2C878.

   The water often came from a cistern which was a tank connected to the gutters to collect rain water. A hand dug and nicely brick lined cistern in the craw space below the kitchen of my mother and father’s house held about 1100 gallons. Popular wisdom was that cistern water was always better for washing hair because it was soft compared to our rock hare and high acid water common to our area of Ohio.

   This is to say you can build this baby any way you please because there was no standard. They were just another site built kitchen cupboard. As I remember most of the sink areas in the ones there were still sheet metal were about 18” deep by about 24” wide. You could easily have a tin knocker solder you up an appropriate sink if you want real authenticity. Remember you are at least a century forward in time from dry sinks so have Sherman set the way back machine appropriately.

   With best regards,
   Ernie Conover

1. 
   zertwiz | Mar 20, 2007 05:41pm | #2

   thankyou most informative but i would still like to see some examples just to get a feel of the look