Form. Flow. Function. How to Make a Concrete Ramp Sink That Works Beautifully

"A well-designed ramp sink combines aesthetic appeal with practical functionality." -Brandon Gore

You’ve seen them - the sleek concrete sinks with that elegant ramp, clean lines, and seamless drainage. But how do you actually build one that not only looks stunning but functions like a dream?

In this episode of The Concrete Podcast, we walk you through the entire process of making a concrete ramp sink - from building a precision form, creating a clean slot-drain, to making smart plumbing connections that don’t require post-cast heroics. Whether you’re building your first ramp sink or refining your technique, this one’s packed with real-world insight.

We also discuss the integration of 1L Portland Cement  in Kodiak Pro materials.

If you’re a maker, craftsman, or design-minded builder looking to blend beauty with function - this episode gives you the tools to build boldly and with confidence.

#concretedesign #MakersMindset #concretecountertops #CreativeCraftsmanship #DesignBuild #DIYConcrete #BuilderPodcast #ModernDesign #RampSinkHowTo #KodiakPro

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, Jon Schuler.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

Two weeks is nice.

I'm liking this two week intervals we're doing.

Gives my brain time to relax a little bit.

It's nice.

Yeah, it also gives the industry some time to churn, so it doesn't feel like we're always trying to keep up on every micro event going on.

So, it's true.

That's great.

It's true.

I went to South Dakota last week to help a friend of mine with some concrete countertops for a TV show called Building Outside the Lines on Magnolia.

My buddy Cappie.

Right on.

Yeah.

I love Cappie.

Love the guy.

But he was as about ill-prepared for this as anybody I've ever met in my life.

We had to build the tables when I got there.

I sent him a list of things to pick up.

I got there and he was just like, yeah, bro, there's a trailer back there.

You got a two-inch, you got a two and five-eighths on your truck?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So there's a trailer back there.

Just go to the hardware store, get whatever you need, put it on my account.

Oh, Jesus.

All right, all right.

So we literally, I mean, I say we.

I, I literally built these dead flat tables, three of them, massive tables, and formed everything, caulked everything, cast everything, de-molded it, etched it, sealed it, in three days, really two and a half days, from start to finish, from time I showed up to the time I left.

But it turned out great, it turned out phenomenal.

And he was blown away.

He's never seen concrete like that.

He was totally just...

I mean, he thought I was joking when I said, hey, we need to get ice.

You know, we were casting outside in a driveway, partially covered with the tent, partially not covered.

Half the forms were in the bright sun.

It was like 85 degrees and 30 mile-per-hour winds.

And I was like, yeah, bro, we need to do ice, 50% ice.

He's like, you're kidding, right?

No, no, I'm not kidding.

So picked up ice, iced the mix.

I was like, put your hand in the mixer, stuck his hand in there, and it was 50 degrees inside the mixer, and it was 85 when he pulled your hand out.

But poured everything, let it cure.

Beautiful.

And when we de-molded it, not a pinner to be found anywhere.

And there was no vibration, obviously.

And then I sealed it with fusion.

I only did fusion because these are actually going around, it's like kind of pool coping and seeding and a floor.

And this pool he's making out of a concrete truck drum from like a big concrete truck.

I sealed everything with fusion, and the second it was done, I'm like, dude, they're done.

You could install these right now if you wanted to.

It's amazing.

Now I'm sealing it outside, it's blowing dust and I'm rolling it.

And I was just telling them, I was like, for the TV show, cause they filmed a lot of it, but probably five seconds will make it into the edit.

But for you, you've done sealer before.

And he was like, yeah, when you're like doing outdoor concrete for whatever you're doing, a fire pit or whatever, you roll a urethane or an epoxy or a polyurea or an acrylic, and dust is the enemy.

Bugs are the enemy.

It's sticky for 20, 30 minutes, an hour, a couple hours, depending on if it's solvent-based or not.

A couple days.

Yeah.

But I mean, dust, windy day, and there's pollen and there's all this stuff.

And I was like, look at this, man.

I'm rolling it, it's drying almost instantaneously.

I torch it, done.

And I'm doing this out in your driveway on a windy day.

And it's beautiful.

It's perfect.

So anyways, that was that was last week.

So yeah, yeah.

Well, that's another example of you don't know what you don't know.

I mean, we see a lot of what I'm going to say on forums and stuff.

I'm going to compare it to something that kind of was eye-opening to me in a totally different, I don't know what's called an industry.

But, you know, you see a lot of that and meaning, you know, people making things in their driveway, their garage, or, you know, and then trying to sell things and, you know, some pushback out there, like, why do I need this material or that material when I can just go pick up this, you know, somewhere else or whatever the case may be.

And at the end of the day, you don't know what you don't know.

And here's my example, a buddy of mine, man, I've known him since we were kids.

He used to train with me, actually, when I was doing bodybuilding and stuff.

He's 70 years old now and life's choices, anyway, he just recently built himself a 10,000 square foot shop.

And I stopped over the other day and him and I were chatting.

And he's, he's really been in the older cars and high performance cars and this and that.

And he had a couple of these drag race cars, man, I'm like, dude, what's up?

He's like, well, I just love this thing.

And I got it from a guy in Canada, but we don't run it very much because it's like, it's like between 10 and $15,000 each time we run it down the track.

I'm like, holy crap, man, really?

My point being, he went on this thing about how it takes the special fuel and et cetera, et cetera.

But it's a winner and it tears it up and no one can compete with it.

To me, that's similar to where we're at.

You know, if I walked out there even with my old Mustang or whatever the case may be, we have no idea what it looked like to go down a quarter mile track in three seconds.

You know what I mean?

Or whatever this thing runs.

And the fact that this needs a certain kind of fuel, like you were saying with the ice, I mean, you know, you need to get, you need to get it to a certain temperature to achieve a certain result.

And you know, again, that wouldn't make sense or wouldn't seem if you were still in a wheelbarrow with a, you know, with a hoe and just squirting water into it.

You know what I mean?

What's the other thing that blows my mind was the precision.

So when we were batching, it was him and I that batched it out.

I'm like, yeah, dude, we're going to do, we did 15 bags all at once.

We rented a mixer from some tool supply place.

This mixer was older than I was and very rarely was ever cleaned.

Right.

So rented this mixer.

Had a hand crank?

Pretty much, man.

You know, clear prop, start cleaning up.

But 15 bags all at once.

I told him, we're doing 6.1 pounds of water per bag.

He's like, 0.1?

I'm like, yeah, dude, 6.1, not 6.2, not 6.0, 6.1.

We're doing 75 grams of plasticizer per bag.

Not 76, not 74.

We're doing 75.

You know, precision is everything.

If you want consistent results every time.

Yeah, reproducible results.

You've got to be precise.

Well, let's get on this podcast.

We got a few things to talk about.

First up, before I go down this path today, the Kodiak Pro demo day.

More people have registered.

Man, this thing is getting big.

June 21st here in Goddard, Kansas, free event.

You go to Kodiak Pro, go to the little menu up in the corner, training and events.

You can read about it.

You can register for it, no cost.

And this is going to be a demonstration where we're going to mix and pour, make or mix.

We're going to de-mold a piece that I made the day before.

We'll acid-atch it, we'll seal it, and I'll answer any questions you have, and you can get some confidence with the materials and just, you know, come say hello, hang out.

So if you're interested, kodiakpro.com.

And I also have a workshop this weekend.

You know, today is the 4th.

It's going to be the 7th and 8th, so you got a few days.

Still enough time.

And this is a fundamentals class.

This is a basics class.

So it's going to be a fun workshop.

I've actually been working on the molds all week.

I'm making some really, really, really cool planters that I've had in the back of my mind for months, if not years.

And the workshop is a great excuse to spend a week building forms.

So I've been working on the forms, getting everything ready.

So anyways, if you're interested in that, go to concretedesignschool.com.

You can register for that.

So those are the two things.

And there are quite a few people already signed up for the demo day, right?

Oh, tons of people.

Tons.

It's between 15 and 20.

I need to do a count.

But between 15 and 20 so far registered, and we're still, you know, what is today, the 4th?

So we're still almost three weeks out.

So yeah, it's going to be good.

Yeah, I've been talking to Joe Bates.

You know, I truly think we ought to do something out here at his place, too.

Like I said, not as a full-fledged workshop, which we still need to do this fall, but just a demo day, you know, or demo weekend or something would be great.

100%.

I got to get Joe on board.

Yeah, I agree.

So today, the main topic of this is going to be ramp sinks.

I've had a few conversations with people as of late about how to build a ramp sink.

I remember the first time I made a ramp sink when a client wanted me to, and I had no idea what I was doing.

And so we'll walk through that, tips, tricks, things to think about, things to watch out for.

But before we do that, you had some things you wanted to talk about.

So what do you want to talk about, Jon?

Crap, man.

I'm going to throw it right back on you.

This morning, you called me five times last night.

And I kept sending out the voicemail.

And I was like, dude, dude, call me.

I was like, man, I'm on dad duty.

I'll call you tomorrow.

Oh, well, that's, yeah.

Well, I mean, most people know if they've been on the ICT forum.

I don't know if I posted on the Kodiak forum, but I've been working on a few things for color enhancement.

Let's just call it color enhancement.

And I think, as most people ever talk to me, I believe the best approach is the concrete.

Like, what can we do to the concrete, to the mixed designs, whatever, an additive, something so that you have a longevity?

And then maybe a backup plan is sealer.

But in the history of this industry, it's always based on sealer, right?

Solvent-born or something.

And the reality is the handsmen just don't last.

It just is what it is.

So I made some modifications to the boost, which we haven't released yet, completely.

Some guys are using it.

Joe's been using it for a while now.

And I just made some things.

And I'll post some pictures later, where what I did is I literally made two small batches, one with and one without boost, poured them into the same sample mold.

I just want to see what was going to happen based on the modifications that I made.

And it's pretty freaking obvious.

I mean, it's like legitimately night and day.

So that's what I was blowing you up about last night, mainly because I shot you the pictures and I'm this and that and like, dude, give me a call.

Yeah, it's all right.

Yeah, I think it's, I mean, I guess, if that's what you want to be working on, Jon, you know, while you're out there playing Mary Poppins.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We were at Wichita's on national news last night flooding.

People are getting rescued.

I never understand what, yeah.

People just, you know, you can tell that it's like three feet deep, crossing the road, water running across the road.

And you're like, I'm gonna drive through it.

Jesus.

Nobody died.

So, you know, that's good.

But that's usually someone will go, I own a Range Rover.

Yeah.

I could go right through this.

Yeah.

Maybe if you had a Ford Ranger, you could get through it.

But yeah.

But yeah, when I was going home, dude, it was it was chaos.

People were just people were just stopping in the road and putting their hazards on and not I'm like, is it are you having electrical issues?

Did it stop?

I saw at least four cars just sitting in a lane of traffic with their hazards on, not on the shoulder, not not moving.

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

People are just losing their minds.

Yeah, it's rain.

Come on, hit the gas.

You know, you see you see running water.

Don't go through it.

Take a detour, you know, like, come on.

How's it this difficult?

A lot of people's first time driving yesterday, apparently.

But anyways, yeah, so I got home as pouring rain and the kids and I went for a walk and turns out, man, all these worms are like in the in the the gutters, you know, like along the side of the road, what do you call it?

Alarms, worms, worms, oh, worms.

I thought you said alarms.

No, no, all these worms.

You know, I guess I guess the soil got so saturated that they came crawling out and got washed down in the gutter.

So we were walking and there's just thousands of worms everywhere.

And the kids thought it was so cool to see all these worms in the water, you know, swimming.

So anyways, yeah.

Swimming.

You mean drowning?

I told the kids they're swimming.

So I don't want to tell them they're all going to die.

But yeah, so yeah.

But that was isn't that amazing?

Yeah, that's what I was doing yesterday when you kept calling them out.

Keep them under there.

You're not going to save all these worms.

They're all going to die.

So yeah, that being said, I got to do.

I'll post some pictures later.

I plan on sealing one of the samples today just to show what the boost is doing.

And then we'll talk about that later.

This might be the first product that we put out for people as a true test and with feedback and et cetera, et cetera.

So we'll have more information on that ASAP.

Cool.

What else did you want to talk about?

There's something else.

I remember you told me you want to talk about...

Materials?

Well, I don't want to be negative Nellie right now, so I'm just going to let it go.

All right.

All right.

We'll let that one go.

We'll pull that up on another time.

Just because we're in positive mode, man.

Things are moving in a good direction.

I know what it was.

The 1L, the Type 1L cement.

Oh, yeah.

You want to talk about that?

Sure.

So the industry has been focused, meaning the Portland cement industry has been focused for a while, and it's called Type 1L.

Those people who don't know, but I think most do, that Portland cement providers, I'm not going to say they've been forced to, but based on carbon tax, you basically had a choice, right?

So they've been forced to do somewhere around, I think it's 10 to 15%.

They're calling it limestone, but the reality is it's calcium carbonate.

So they're putting in that percentage.

I had done a preemptive strike in our materials getting ready, and now it's being fully implemented.

So there's going to be some modifications soon, information being available about RadMix and the Kodiak Pro materials, where now that the Type 1L, because we're using Federal White, now the Type 1L is come fully on board, updating modifications to the mix, accommodating specifically for, now we're using that cement, not 100% cement anymore.

Yeah.

Yup.

And there are going to be cool changes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's just, it's like screaming at the sun.

People can be upset about 1L, but you're not going to change it.

It is what it is.

This is the new reality is 1L is the de facto cement and the manufacturers of Portland Cement, that's what they're making.

You know, this whole carbon tax thing, I was telling you, I was watching this video about this Australian guy.

Get me started.

Yeah, this Australian guy was doing a comedy video about he's trying to make a airline reservation and they kept asking him for, do you want to pay to choose your seat?

Do you want to pay for luggage?

Do you want to pay for this?

And then they say, do you want to pay a $6 to offset the carbon of your flight?

And he's like, how's giving you more money going to make the flight more green?

Don't you worry about that.

Just give us the money, we'll figure it out, right?

It's the same thing with this.

The federal government or whoever's imposing a carbon tax, I assume it's the federal government, if they choose not to make 1L, the cement manufacturers, they have to pay a tax.

Well, what does that do?

Where's that money go?

How's that going to benefit anybody?

It's just going to go into wasteful spending and social security payouts for people that died 30 years ago.

It's ridiculous.

The whole idea of a carbon tax is ridiculous, but I digress.

No, it is.

I still say that, you know, who's ever implementing and wherever they're implementing it, the information of where the actual tax money is going and what it's supposed to be used for is like the biggest gray area that you've ever seen.

Grift isn't what it is.

It's insane.

Yeah, it seems like a money grab.

But, you know, whatever it is, what it is.

So that being said, people look for look probably within the next week, next couple of weeks where these modification are starting to be updated on the website.

And the materials themselves are going to be fully updated again, probably within the next blending.

Yeah.

Cool.

Cool, cool, cool.

Anything else, Jon?

Like I said, I'd like to talk materials and et cetera, et cetera.

But we'll just leave that alone right now.

As long as we're all in a positive mode.

Let's talk about ramp sinks.

Have you ever made a ramp sink, Jon?

I have.

Yes.

And I found I'd love to hear other people now, because this isn't a conversation I think we've ever sat down and said, man, how do you make your ramp sink?

The most difficult spot on a ramp sink that I have found is A if I am well, again, are we precasting or upright casting?

If we're precasting, then for me, it's always going to be about making that.

I'm going to call it the undercut on the front lip, you know, so it sits flush.

So I'm very interested to see how other people do that.

Maybe they don't cut it at all, you know, to get the, you know, the long part of the ramp.

Talking about the transition where it meets the countertop?

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is the most difficult part for sure.

Yeah.

And then on the flip side, no, I mean, ramp sinks, upright cast, once again, man, it's just about how good are you with the trowel because you don't, I don't really make, I mean, you know, it's a, how would I say this?

It's basically just three sides.

Everything's really done by hand.

Yeah.

Well, I can answer that question.

I am the worst with a trowel, the worst.

You might as well just put them on my feet.

Let me stomp on it.

It'll look about the same.

Yeah.

Well, that's the same thing.

See that there's the toughest part, I think, for most people, upright casting ramp sink is trying to keep that.

Let's call it the front of the sink there even.

Right.

So if you're going four inches straight across, how do you do that by hand without it being all wonky?

Yeah, I'd say probably a laser.

I would set up a laser, a laser that I could put a plane on it, and my laser, I can lock it and then tilt it, and it would keep a straight front edge, but also set it to the, whatever it is, 20 degrees, whatever, and I could just keep, you know, you just let it just graze the top of the concrete so you could see if it's getting waves in it or getting off.

But I wouldn't do that.

I'd precast it.

I'm not an upright cast person.

There's people out there that are good at it.

You're good at it.

Joe Bates is good at it.

Michael Karmody is good at it.

I'm not good at it.

I'm the worst at it.

So for me, I'm going to be talking about precasting a concrete ramp sink.

But it's funny you hit on that.

The most difficult part of a ramp sink is the transition from the countertop to the sink.

And when I made my very first ramp sink, and the way I think most people make a ramp sink, is I made the mold for the sink, and then I put it into a melamine form that was the countertop, and then tried to create the transition.

And I've tried everything.

I've tried silicone.

Oh, you mean cut the hole and then just caulk that seam?

Yeah, yeah.

I've tried silicone.

Oh yeah, that's hard.

I've tried clay, because the silicone always shrinks a little bit and you don't get a perfect.

And then, you know, you think it's perfect and you come back the next day and now it's got a dip in it, so when you flip it over, it's going to be raised.

So I've tried clay to make the transition.

Clay works better because it doesn't shrink, but then the problem with clay is it leaves a stain that you have to deal with.

What I landed on ultimately was I make the sink and the countertop all one form when I make my ramp sinks.

So I make my ramp sinks out of particle board and the countertop, so I'll take a sheet of particle board, I'll cut, let's say I'm making an 18 inch by 36 inch ramp sink.

I'll cut that 18 by 36 out of the middle of the particle board and then I'll start building my ramp sink using the same material, but I'll make my form.

And so essentially that particle board, when it comes down and it meets the countertop, it's already pretty much a perfect seam right there, right?

So I'll build it all.

I just use brad nails, but I'll build it all out of particle board.

I'll bondo any gaps, like let's say the sides, when you bring it in, you're, you know, you kind of roughly miter it so it sits in nice, but it'll probably have a eighth inch to quarter inch gap in between, not a big deal.

A little bondo in there or that wood putty we talked about previously, that strong man, whatever it is, wood putty.

But bondo or wood putty, sand it smooth.

And you do that any place you have gaps, boom, boom, boom, get it all done.

And then I apply resin.

Usually I'm going to be using a polyester resin because it's cheaper than epoxy and it sets quicker so I can get more coats on more quickly.

But I know Karmody prefers epoxy resin, whichever your preference is.

But then I'm going to resin everything.

I'm going to resin the countertop and the mold all at the same time.

So the sink mold and the countertop and the particle board will soak it up, that first coat and then I'll build a few more layers.

And then when it's all cured up, I'll sand it.

And then I end up with a perfect transition, absolutely perfect.

You can't get any better because it's the same material, all resin together.

Perfect transition between sink and countertop and it's the same material.

So you don't get any of this difference between a fiberglass form and a melamine form or rubber and melamine.

Sometimes there's a little bit of difference in texture or whatever.

So it's all the same texture, it's all the same material.

And then I cast my sink.

The downside of this is you're kind of that form, you might be able to use it again if you get somebody comes to you that wants a sink in that size.

But otherwise, it's a one use project.

Right.

What are your thoughts?

Oh, I 100% agree with the times when I did it start to finish.

I did fabric forming.

That's what worked for me.

And now it had more of a flow to it than the straight angles and stuff of a conventional ramp sink.

Well, it's not really ramp sink, is it?

Well, no, it still has a ramp.

I mean, you know, it's still.

Yeah, no, it's definitely still ramping.

Otherwise, I mean, what's your other choice, really?

Assuming you get it in the right sizes.

And I don't even know if any of the fiberglass guys Crete molds, right, expressions, some of those other guys that actually have ramp sinks available.

But I don't know.

You know, the question would be, does it what they have to offer going to fit in the size that you want?

So that's possible.

And I have seen other guys, and I'd love to hear from them, who make it out of, I don't know, what is?

Shoot, I'm blanking.

I don't know that white plastic board.

Yeah, I think like Mark Malone does that.

I want to say I've seen some cool sink molds he's made.

And Seth Taylor, I sense, does it too.

I've never done it.

So the question is, yeah, what's the angle that they end up cutting or sanding that makes the clean transition between the front of the ramp and then laying flat on your mold or on your surface?

What is that?

20 degrees, 18?

I mean, I don't even know.

I tried doing it once, and I think everybody who's probably tried doing it once, and I cut it as much as I could on the table saw, holding it up, and then I sanded it back, and it made that whole front lip of whatever material I was using so flimsy that I'm like, yeah, this isn't gonna work.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Again, assuming you want that nice, clean transition.

Otherwise, I've seen where a lot of people, they just make their form, and then there's like a quarter inch drop lip.

So you got the front drops down a quarter inch or whatever, and then goes down into your ramp sink.

And I can appreciate that because, I mean, at the end of the day, really, what water is gonna get up that close?

But if you want that real clean, crisp transition from your, let's call it that four inch front, and then drops right into your ramp, then yeah, I'd be interested to see how some people make that transition, what that angle is.

I used to sell plastic molds.

One of these days, when I have time, I'm gonna get back to it.

But I sold ramp sinks, and I always had a three quarter inch vertical edge around it because there was no way to get the plastic to come down to a sharp edge.

It would just have been wavy.

So I had to do like a beam, I had to do a vertical piece.

And so at that point, you're just like, let's just embrace it.

And we'd put it in a form and silicone around it.

And if a client saw it and they liked it, great.

But if I'm doing a custom ramp sink, I like to have a totally smooth transition, nothing in between.

You're right about the plastic.

I know Karmody has done plastic as well.

He talked about it a few times.

And he would use a solvent glue for whatever plastic, whether it was acrylic or polycarbonate, I'm not sure what he's using, but he used a solvent glue that literally chemically weld the pieces together.

And then he would polish it out with trizact sandpaper that's made for plastic.

He'd polish it out, ended up with these seamless transitions.

But Karmody is a rare duck, you know.

Like this guy, he's genius level with...

Did you see that table he made recently?

That thing is beautiful.

He's incredible with his ability to make complex forms easily.

He came out a long time ago to Tempe, Arizona, and he built some forms.

And you know, he uses a laser a lot of times just to get reference points.

So he'll kind of mock up a design.

He'll use a laser to get reference points.

And he'll just use a skill saw and just cut, you know, with a essentially just 90 degree cut.

So you're, you know, it's just a straight cut.

He cut out of shapes roughly.

Then he takes a hand planer, electric one, but he takes a planer and he'll plane the bevel and he'll over plane it.

So when he brings them together, everything meets up super tight and crisp.

But it's such a genius way to approach it.

He's not going for precision.

I would approach it where I want to figure out all my cuts.

I'm going to use the Festool track saw.

I'm going to set it to 27 degrees, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Carmen is like, no, no, no, no, no.

He just uses laser, gets his reference points, hand cuts it, no track saw, then grabs a planer, like over bevels it, brings it in, brad nails it together, bondos it, boom, done.

And then he does one coat of epoxy because he's like Jedi level with the epoxy.

It's something to behold.

But, for most of us, we're not that skilled at that approach.

And so, I approach it from...

I try to get everything as close as I can with the miters, and then, like I said, I do the bondo, and then I do polyester resin, 3, 4, 5 coats of that, and then I'll sand it.

Oh, I was going to say, the other thing, if you approach it that way, the other thing you might want to look at, and this is something I picked up from Karmody again, is using Baltic birch for your form versus using particle board.

And the reason was Baltic birch is extremely stable.

It's very flat and it's very stable.

So you don't have to worry about any kind of warping from heat or anything like that, where particle board, I've never had an issue per se, but particle board is not as strong as three-quarter inch Baltic birch.

So if Baltic birch is readily available in your area, it's something you can pick up at a woodworker's supply, is, you know, I've done it a few times, and the molds I made were beautiful.

And so if something you're going to maybe keep and reuse, maybe it's a mold that you're going to be making 10, 15, 20 sinks for a project, yeah, use Baltic birch for sure.

It's going to be a much flatter substrate that will last longer than particle board.

Cool, man.

Well, again, I look forward to hearing people on their ramp sink.

I think that's what it is, probably half-inch acrylic or something they're using.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Or PVC board or something.

That's right, Jon.

The next part of making a ramp sink, Jon, is the slot train.

The slot train.

There's different ways to approach it.

Some people use acrylic.

You're losing me, man.

You're losing me.

Why?

I'm going down a path and you're losing me.

I'm trying to keep a train of thought here.

Focus.

Sorry.

I'm going to get you some Adderall so we can focus on the conversation.

All right.

Slot train, Jon.

So the slot train is, again, when I made my first ramp sink, I didn't know how to make a slot train.

I used not even half inch.

I used three quarter inch pink foam when I made it.

And it was almost like a Mickey Mouse slot train.

It was way too big.

Way, you know, you could see down into it and it lost all the magic.

I think about a slot train, why people love them.

Where's the water go?

I don't know, it goes to another dimension.

I don't know where it goes.

It goes in that slot right there and it disappears.

That's the magic of a slot train.

So you don't want to see all the way in to see the hole where the water is going because at that point, why even have the slot train, right?

So I used three quarter inch foam, pink foam, and it was a mess.

Other people I know have used acrylic, like you were saying a minute ago, quarter inch or half inch acrylic.

The problem with acrylic or polycarbonate is going to be it has no give.

And so to get it out is extremely difficult.

It's going to be locked in pretty good.

And you're going to have to really fight it.

It has zero ability to have any compression whatsoever.

So to get it out is very, very difficult.

What I settled on is half inch PVC, polyvinyl chloride PVC foam board.

And it used to be you could only get it at a sign supply place or a plastic supplier.

They would sell this PVC foam board.

It's used a lot in the sign industry.

But I think Lowe's and Home Depot now sell PVC foam board.

Sometimes it's textured, sometimes it's not, but they'll sell it in the trim section.

And it's the same stuff.

And so you can use that for your slot drain.

And so slot drain, essentially what I like to do is let's say it's a 36 inch sink.

I'll draw it out on the foam board, 36 across.

I'll measure up.

The deeper it is on the edges, the better in the sense of you can't see to the bottom of the slot drain.

So I'll measure up one inch on each side.

And then in the center or wherever the drain is going to be placed, the cool thing about a slot drain is it doesn't have to be centered.

You could move the drain all the way off to one side and just slope the drain to that.

So if you have a condition, maybe it's ADA or something, and the drain can't be centered, the drain needs to be off to the left.

So there's more clearance under the sink for a wheelchair.

You can do that with a slot drain.

You just have everything slope to that spot.

But let's say it's centered, just for sake of argument.

So I measure one inch, one inch, and then you want at least a quarter inch per foot drainage.

I do a little bit more than that, so the water drains quick.

But I'll measure up, let's say, inch and a half or inch and three quarter in the middle, and then I'll just draw my lines from each side up to that, cut it out with a track saw, sand it all nice and smooth where I cut, put a little bit of round over on it so there's no sharp edges for gunk to accumulate.

And then I'll apply silicone to it, put it on my sink mold, let the drain affix, let the silicone cure, and then I'll do my round over a few hours later or the next day.

And that's how I do that.

Any thoughts, Jon?

Yeah, I mean, no, you're absolutely right.

And that is the perfect way of doing it.

But I have long since walked away from slot drains.

I mean, you and I have talked about this, and I realize everybody has their different takes on it.

But I will say the slot drains that I have done in the past, clients ended up unhappy with them because they were difficult to clean.

So similar to what you've done, there's two different methods of madness if you want to do pop-up drains.

And that would be so at least what I have done.

So where you're talking about cutting the PVC board, the quarter-inch, you know, and again taper to the center, you do the same thing, and then you use a piece of PVC, the size, and then you use like the conventional drain assembly sitting on top of that, so that when it's flipped over, someone can use a pop-up drain down in the center.

Or the other method that I've done, which it does take away from your conventional sink, is I flatten the whole bottom of the sink and I put the five degree or whatever, eight degree taper from, let's call it not really zero, but I'll come out maybe an inch, and then I widen it all the way to the center of the sink where the drain assembly is gonna go, so that that ends up a flattened area for my drain assembly.

It just doesn't have that crisp clean, I don't know what the angle is there, but from the ramp down to the vertical back.

So instead at the bottom, it flattens out a little bit.

So again, so you can put a conventional pop-up drain or whatever kind of drain you wanna put in the center.

Yeah.

That's the way I do them now.

Yeah, I've done that a few times.

I'll post a photo of, I've done a few sinks like that, but I try to hide it.

And so in the case that I've done it, I did a stone that like bridged over the ramp sink.

I recessed it down so it sat flush with the countertop essentially.

But it bridged over, it was removable.

But when you put it over, the water ran underneath the stone.

So you didn't see the actual drain that was there.

But it made it easier to clean and assess it, or access it.

What I'd say is, I've heard the argument about it not being easy to clean.

I haven't had, I've literally lived with slot drains and sinks.

I haven't had that experience.

But what I would say, there's a few things.

One is sometimes people put drain covers over slot drains.

So they'll put like a grate, essentially, over the drain.

Oh yeah, yeah.

That's gonna keep it from drying out.

That's gonna hold moisture in there.

And then it will get funky.

Then you'll start to get stuff growing in there.

So if you do that, you need to be pretty diligent about pulling it out weekly, spraying cleaner in there, and then running a brush.

And you can pick up just almost like a pipe cleaner type brush, but a soft bristle brush that'll fit down in there.

Just run it back and forth, run water and clean it out.

The other thing that people had problems with years and years ago, I had Kona Grill reach out to me.

Kona Grill is a chain.

And they had had ramp sinks built out of granite.

And back then, the method, and it's probably still like this for granite, because they can't form a drain in like we can.

But back then, the method was they would goop on a tray on the underside.

So they'd essentially make this ramp sink and it'd have a hole.

But on the underside of the sink, they'd goop this stainless steel or plastic tray.

And then on the tray, there'd be a drain assembly that they could hook up to.

And Kona Grill made all these sinks for all the restaurants pretty much at the same time.

They opened up, I don't know, about 20 restaurants within a year or two.

And it had the same sink manufacturer.

And almost all of them started failing at the same time.

The trays that were gooped on the underside, the adhesive started failing.

We're getting stinky, man.

Well, let me finish my thought here, Jon.

And the trays started falling away.

And when it fell away, all that science experiment that was growing inside those trays, because people were washing their hands, they're eating lobster, they're eating crab legs, they're washing their hands.

It's going down in there.

It's never drying out.

It's never getting sunlight.

You know, it's just growing this bacteria in there.

They all started pulling away from the outside of the sinks, and the bathroom smelled like death.

And so they called me up and they said, hey, you know, we want to get a price on sinks.

I gave them a price.

My price is too high.

I don't know what direction they went.

But my point is that system, and I know some concrete guys maybe still do that.

I don't know if anybody does, but I would highly...

Well, I know they still say you go to Concrete Expressions and some of the other places.

I know they still have them listed for sale.

Yeah, don't do that.

But don't do that.

Because those things...

No, don't do that.

Those things, they'll never...

You can never clean them.

They'll never dry out, and they'll just start to grow stuff in there.

So back to the way I do a slot drain.

It dries out.

It gets airflow.

It's exposed.

It doesn't get funky.

The only time they ever get a little funky is like in a restaurant where people are washing their hands constantly, like every three minutes, and then they never do dry.

And in that case, they have to be more diligent about cleaning.

So they just need to go in there, they need to spray cleaner in the drain, take a brush, run it back and forth a few times, run, sorry, hit the microphone, run water.

And if they do that, it's going to be fine.

I've never had an issue with the slot drain being problematic if it was made correctly.

The only time is great or that under the tray on the underside or the two times I've seen people have problems.

I don't know, man, the tray thing.

So, there was a show, if people haven't seen it, called The Last of Us on HBO.

Yeah.

And the original inspiration for that entire show.

And I think even the video game that it came from, like a lot of people think it's from the video game, but it's not.

It's from those pans that used to be silicon to the bottom of the sinks.

And yeah, you know, it made people sick and then controlled their minds.

Yeah.

So that's how last of us, that's how the show really came about.

No, it didn't.

It came about from the ants.

Oh yeah, yeah, dude.

Could you imagine those pans coming out from under there?

You imagine what grossness was growing inside those things?

Gnarly.

No.

Come on.

It's just nasty.

It came from the ants that were getting infected with the fungus and taking them over.

That's what it came from.

No, dude.

That's just the fungus.

That's the fungus.

Okay.

Nasty.

Whatever.

Whatever.

So the last part, Jon, in this discussion about how to make a slot drain is how do you actually do the drain, like the actual drain fitting, right?

So we've talked about how do you make the slot using PVC foam board.

We talked about how to make the mold using plywood or particle board and then resin and everything.

But when you get to actual drain, here's the other thing that I've learned the hard way over the years.

And I'll tell you the better way.

So the hard way was, I used to take a down tube that you would buy, inch and a quarter down tube from Lowe's Room Depot, and I would actually put it on that foam slot that I had cut.

I'd put it on there and I'd cast concrete all around it.

And if anybody ever bought any of my old videos from back in the day on how to make a sink or GFRC, you'd see us do it that way.

And it worked, it worked fine.

But the problem was, there was this permanently embedded drain tube.

And if anything ever happened, and luckily it never happened to me, but I've heard horror stories from other artisans where they would ship a sink or whatever.

And when they're going to install, they would catch that tube on something and bend it.

What are you going to do?

What are you going to do now?

You got to cut the thing off and you got to try to finagle something up in there.

And oh my God, it's this nightmare.

The other thing was people use it as a handle.

So when they're doing an install, people are cranking on it, they're grabbing it, they're carrying it up the stairs.

You don't grab ahold of it, yeah.

So that wasn't the best solution.

A guy named Jared Enlow, he's up in, I want to say Bozeman, Montana.

He's up in Montana, pretty sure Bozeman.

But Jared Enlow came up with a method where he bought a grid drain, G-R-I-D, grid drain, and he would cut off the bottom of the grid drain.

The way a grid drain works when you buy it at a hardware store is the sexual drain assembly, then it has a screw-in down tube.

It screws into the actual grid drain.

There's inner threads.

So he would cut off that bottom portion of the grid drain, the bottom one inch that has the threads in it.

And that is what he would put into the concrete.

And so I'll post photos.

If you go to kodiakpro.com, maybe you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple or SoundCloud or wherever you're listening, if you go to kodiakpro.com and find this episode, scroll down on the home page, you'll see it, or you can click on Podcast up in the top.

I'll post photos on the Kodiak Pro page for the podcast, showing what I'm talking about.

But essentially, he takes that 1 inch piece with the inner threads and he casts that into the concrete.

And then after the concrete's cured and you demold it, then you can screw the tube in to the fitting.

And the good thing about that is you can ship it in a smaller crate because you don't have 6 inches of tube that's making the crate 6 inches bigger.

But more importantly, if for whatever reason it gets damaged, it can be unscrewed and a new one can be screwed in, problem solved.

And people aren't trying to carry it up the stairs with it.

So much, much better system.

Is it Phil Courtney?

You know what you might find?

Who's making the brass ones?

I can only think you probably...

What's that?

Who's making the brass ones?

Is it Phil Courtney?

That was Phil Courtney.

Yeah.

OK, so Phil Courtney's not making the fittings out of brass if you don't want to buy the ones at Home Depot and Cutting with the Ground.

Yeah, my only concern with his, though, and I have not talked to him about it, so again, he might be like, man, why did you even talk about that?

When I saw his brass fitting, they were smooth all the way around.

And with the ones that we just talked about, where you cut them off, you know, epoxy the two pieces together, I like the way it locks into the concrete.

So my only concern, which might be a total moot point, is with the ones that he made or had made or maybe 3D printed, I don't know what he did with them.

Is there enough tooth on the outside so if someone over cranks it or the concrete shrinks, you know, a little bit, would they end up spinning?

I don't know.

Again, versus the other one.

And again, maybe he's now since then put some little teeth on it or something.

I don't know.

But that would be my only concern with those.

But same idea.

They were incredibly nice.

But where I was going with it is, I remember there was like this Artisan magazine that had this whole article that was written about making the way Jared Inlow does it.

And I'm wondering if you maybe have that somewhere in your.

Deep, deep, deep, buried down in your articles.

What are you even talking about?

What are you talking about?

Don't you remember that article that was written?

No.

Are you serious?

I'll have to see if I can find my magazine then.

Jon, we don't talk about Concrete Cartel.

It's a wound that's too.

No, no, I'm just talking about the article.

The specific article that went into this magazine.

We don't need...

You know what I mean?

Never say his name.

No good deed goes unpunished.

No, I'm just talking about the article.

No good deed goes unpunished, Jon.

Tattoo it on your soul.

I wonder if you could find that article.

That would be a great one.

It was almost a step process.

It was pretty cool.

It was step by step.

You know, funny enough, Jon, and I say this in all truth, I don't know if I even have that issue around anymore.

I burned...

Well, not the issue.

Didn't you save it someplace?

No, no, no.

In a folder or something?

No.

Really?

I've had two or three MacBooks since then that have crashed and frozen.

And I've lost so much data over the years.

Pictures, all kinds of stuff because I didn't back it up.

And so, no, it's gone.

But when I moved from Arizona to Arkansas, I had thousands of each issue because the printer I went to had to print like 10,000 or 5,000, whatever the minimum was, I don't know, it was at a minimum order.

And so I had thousands of each one.

And I was like, dude, don't really carry these things around forever.

No.

So I just built a big bonfire and it burned them all.

So, yeah.

Well, right on, man.

Yeah, you know, either way, that assembly, yeah, I'll talk to Phil about it again.

Because that was pretty cool, man.

I don't know if he was 3D printing them.

I don't know if he could 3D print brass, quite frankly.

No, no, he's having a machine.

He's not 3D printing them.

They're brass.

They're being machined.

But yeah, all they need to do is machine a vertical slot.

Just one groove in it.

Just a groove.

So when the concrete is cast, it can't spin.

Because you got a plumber.

You know, these plumbers, they don't give a crap.

They're going to put a pipe wrench on it.

And they're going to be like...

You know?

And yeah, they could spin it loose if it doesn't have anything to grip.

And anybody who's done it the other way, that's why I'm saying it got locked in.

Because you had, you know, that...

Hex nut.

When you flip the hex nut over, yeah.

I mean, even if you were using, I don't know, some kind of materials, you know, with less integrity, that would shrink and cross problems, then I could see that's ultimately spinning.

Yeah.

Compared to having that nut on the back, that even if it did shrink a little bit, it would still get locked somehow.

Especially, and you left just enough.

I usually left about a quarter inch of the original thread with the same idea, you know what I mean?

You got all these kind of little grooves that the concrete would have to work itself into.

Again, gives us a much better lock.

100%, Jon.

So that's how you make a concrete ramp sink.

And that's how you make a slot train.

Like I said, go to Kodiak Pro, look at the photos.

It'll make sense.

Yeah, yeah.

And if it doesn't make sense, you'll figure it out.

Ramp sinks, are they as popular anymore?

I think so.

I mean, I see Seth Taylor still makes quite a few of them.

No, I still have customers hit me up for ramp sinks.

So yeah, ramp sinks, I mean, they're timeless.

If they're done well, they look great.

I love ramp sinks.

Ramp sinks are functional.

Again, if they're done well, they're functional.

They're beautiful.

My next house, when I build my next place, or maybe when I remodel the bathroom in my current house, I'll probably do a ramp sink because I think they're good for kids.

Because that quarter inch, oh, I'm sorry, that half inch slot is kind of a natural way to keep stuff from going down the drain, you know.

It's not big enough for a GI Joe or whatever to get down in there when the kids are dropping stuff in the sink.

So yeah, I think ramp sinks, they're awesome.

I love them.

I think they're great.

Well, if Brandon Gore, approved by Brandon Gore.

I'm the arbiter of all things good, Jon.

It gets my stamp of approval.

Right on.

Yeah, yeah, I'm still stuck in those.

And I don't know, I'm gonna call them the Infinity Sinks right now.

I think those are really nice.

I like the way it turns.

I'm getting ready to install one that Jaden, my son.

Infinity Sinks, are you talking about the Kanye West Sink, the ones that are just super minimal?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think those are nice.

You know, well, it's funny, you can sit someone up on the sink.

Oh, yeah?

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Lots of room.

Sounds dirty.

You know, that sink concept, Kanye didn't come up with that.

I mean, maybe he did.

Maybe he never saw the OG version of that, but the OG version was a sink that was made out of Corian.

This was in the early 2000s.

And the reason I know this is because my buddy Sam Graham, who did Corian, showed me a picture of it, and he was totally, you know, losing his mind to how awesome it was.

But it was called, I want to say it was called the wash plane.

If I had to remember, it's been so many years.

But essentially, it was Corian that they heated up, they would heat it up in an oven and they'd let it slightly droop on one, and the whole back edge would just droop down.

But it was imperceptible.

It was, you know, totally minimal, and it was so gradual that you couldn't even see it.

And they held it off the wall, and they did like a stainless steel tray, essentially it went off the back of the wall, then down and back up.

But the water, they did a wall mount faucet, the water would sheet flat and then kind of all drift to the back and went down this narrow slot along the back wall.

But it was the first iteration of kind of that super flat sink that looks like it's not going to drain, looks pretty much flat.

And yeah, so that was like 2000, I started my company in 2004, but I think it was made even before that.

I think it was like probably 2002 or 2003 that that first Corian sink came out, called the Washplain, if I remember correctly.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, I like it.

I think they're nice.

Yeah.

I mean, I just did one not long ago for a master bath, double vanity, same thing.

Yeah, it was beautiful.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right.

Right on, buddy.

Yeah, we've done our hour.

We've done our time, Jon.

We've put our time in.

All right, Jon, you can wrap this up.

Let's do it.

All right, man.

Adios, amigo.

Adios.