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To add a little bling to the sink, we decided we were going to paint the faucet hardware and the legs. At first I thought it was a poured concrete form, but after a little scrubbing I realized it too was made of zinc! So once I took off the initial sink scum, I went back over with the Versa non scratch pad and toothpaste to make it shine! Faucet And Metal Stand While a tough chemical cleaner can certain take the miles off, it will most likely disintegrate the original drain connection which is apparently nearly impossible to replace.Īlso on the inside of one of the basins is an inset washboard. You need to be extra careful about what chemicals you use on the inside.

So now what?Īgain I used the Dremel Versa but this time I used Oxy Clean to scrub first using the bristle brush attachment and then the heavy duty scouring pad. With a lot more chipping and degradation sanding was out of the question. It started to look like a Jackson Pollock. I’ll admit… in the decade we’ve lived in the house I’ve cleaned quite a few paint brushes without much care to the inner surface. The area of the Laundry Sink that took the most abuse is by far the inside basin. A damp pad and a generous application of toothpaste shined the zinc edge right up! Inside The Basin In this case I used the non-scratch pad and wait for it… toothpaste with baking soda. Time to pull out the Dremel Versa! Yes, it’s a rotary tool, but you have a variety of scrubbing pads to swap out. So kudos to zinc! However… it’s also not something you want to sand with random orbit sander. Guess what’s not concrete? The top edge of the Laundry Sink! It’s actually zinc! It’s there to reinforce a high traffic area that could have easily been chipped concrete after years of use. Using the same tinted (Behr Key Largo Green) concrete paint I used in the Floor Stencil Tutorial, the pop of color went on easily. So that explains the darker coloring and gave us the idea to bring in a fun color. With a dust mask on I quickly sanded out the wear and tear with 220 grit.ĭuring my research of the patent number, I found out that this particular sink traditionally was painted black on the outer basin. After consulting my buddy Scott Sidler from Austin Historical he told me I could lightly sand the basin with a random orbit sander and a high grit. It has it’s fair share of dirt layers and paint splatters, but that were easily cleaned up. The outer wall of the sink was in relatively good shape despite being a basement eyesore for decades. So how did I clean and restore the concrete sink? I had to break it down into sections because the outer wall, top edge, inside basin, inset washboard, faucet and metal stand all needed special attention. Going at this with a rough abrasive and the wrong chemical cleaner and I could do some serious damage. For Laundry Sinks like mine the concrete mixture contained a good amount of Portland cement which is extra strong, but still very porous. When I looked for the manufacturer’s mark and found a patent number, I plugged it into Google and looked it up! Concrete!Ī big difference here is concrete made today versus concrete from almost 100 years ago. Because Soap Stone darkens over time it was easy to confuse the two here. A very light hand sanding and then a generous application of mineral oil and the Laundry Sink would really pop. The main ingredient in Soap Stone is talc, which is one of the softest minerals.

So why the big deal from the original post about whether this was Soap Stone or Concrete? It all comes down to restoration.

*This post has been sponsored by Dremel Tools and would not have been possible without the help of the Dremel Versa! Affiliate links included.

So find out how we brought this show stopper Vintage Laundry Sink back to life! After a little research ( from the patent number we found on the bottom) we found we would have to approach this in a whole new direction. At first we thought the behemoth was a Soap Stone Sink given the age of our Craftsman Style home. A while back we revealed our Scary Basement Makeover that came with a lot of new bells and whistles… but there was one element that stole the show: our original Concrete Double Laundry Sink.