Unfortunately they don't offer any quarter round pieces that I could use to trim out a sink with.

Well, have I gotta the gooda noosa fuhyou!! :-) Because you're using a thru- body color porcelain (which means it's unglazed and the body of the tile is the same color as the finish) you can bullnose the edge of it in exactly the same manner as marble or granite!!

Now, I've never worked with a swanstone sink. The only thing I've ever undermounted was a stainless sink, which only has a flange about 1/16" thick, and can be "sunk" into the countertop substrate and epoxied in place, and then tiled over. if your contractor can come up with a way to mount that sink so it's flush to the top of the finished substrate, then I can tile over it to it's edge.

For the sake of argument, I'll assume that the sink's in place and the countertop's ready for tile (I've posted a link to my backsplashes and countertops page below for instructions on how to make the counter's substrate strong enough). You want to get your exact tile layout and lay pieces in place where you want to make your cuts.

Once you've done that, you want to take the template that comes with the sink, and lay it over the tile, so you can trace it out. You'd do well to use either a "china marker" in a color that contrasts the color of your tile to make your marks. Not only will it show up nicely and mark the tile easily, but it won't wash off under the wet saw, later.

If you notice the red marks on the template in the picture above, that's from "sharpening" the china marker I was using. You want to make as accurate a mark as you can, because these marks will determine what the finished product will look like (If you look close, you'll see that the second pic was actually taken first, and in the first pic above, you can actually see the marks already drawn out). Once you've marked all the tiles, it's time to cut. Now, the straight cuts are easy. Anyone who knows how to turn a wet saw on and off and can follow a line can cut those. It's the radius cuts that take some patience and time. First thing you want to do is to is make as many straight cuts into the piece to remove the "meat" of the waste as possible. Start by going point to point, one side of the cut to the other. Then you can "V" cut into the middle of the radius. after that, you can cut "fingers" from the outside edge into the radius (cut strips 1/4" wide that can be knocked off by tapping them afterward). Once you've got as much of the waste cut out as you can, now it's time to move the saw tray out of the way, and grind the rest down to your lines, using the side of the saw blade's edge. One thing to keep in mind, and this is EXTREMELY important-- you want this cut to look EXACTLY the same from the back of the tile, as it does from the front. if it makes it any easier to understand what I'm saying, the radius of the blade is working against you. The reason for this is that it's actually the BACK of the tile that needs to show the cut to the line you drew, because that's what's going to show, once the piece is finished. The top edge is going to get "bullnosed" off. Once you've got all your pieces cut, now it comes time for the fun and interesting stuff. Normally, I'll tell people, when doing granite, to take their pieces to a stone shop, because the cost of the tools is so cost prohibitive. But with porcelain, you don't need granite pads. Marble pads which are MUCH cheaper, will work fine. All you need is any standard 4 1/2" single speed grinder (about 70.00), and a set of PVA Marble pads (about another 80.00). I'll post the web address where you can find them on line at the end here, because I don't know how to post "in text" links. Anyway, you want to take a couple of pieces of scrap and practice with them, because although you can't hurt the porcelain the way you can stone, it's still easy to screw up in several different ways if you don't get yourself used to using the tools and how it feels. Once you get started, you want to take the grinder with a dry diamond continious rim blade, and take a light pass just to knock the corner off the edge. Once you've done that, it's time to start going thru the pads. Start with the extra coarse to shape the bullnose. Don't try and finish the whole thing with that first pad. Just give it its rough shape, and then move up the line to the next pad. WIth each progressive pad, you should be able to see the bullnose edge begin to take shape. By the time you're into the medium pad (the 3rd pad in the set), you should be completely done shaping, and concentrating more on taking out the scratch marks from the previous pads, and once done with the medium pad you'll have a pretty good honed edge. Once they're done, it's just a matter of setting them in place.

here's the web page that has the PVA polishing pads:

http://www.masterwholesale.com/details/1155670447.html

Here is a link that might be useful: my website's backsplashes and countertops page

Bill Thank You SO much!

I'm printing it out and handing it to mu husband. It shouldn't be a problem to place the sink in the plywood, we have chisels lol.

bump

Here's another bump. I was recently emailed about posting this in the FAQ website, but there have been literally scores of people who've emailed me about this, so I thought I'd bring this back up to the top.

How is the sink "sunk" into the counter top substrate? And what type of epoxy do you recommend? Thanks.

I'm bumping this as I wondered about sinking the sink into the substrate as well. I looked at the FAQ page but don't see this thread posted.

The one thing I want to add to this post is that if you tile over the sink as described by Billy V, you will have to destroy the tile to remove the sink. Most likely the sink will wear out before the tile, so it is a consideration. So keep some extra tile around so you can repair the counter-top if you need to.

You can mount the sink to the substrate with any multi-material adhesive. We use just plain silicon adhesive caulk. Make sure it's "adhesive" and not just plain silicon caulk. As stronger adhesive such as Power Grab would also work, but is probably more stickum than you need. Whatever you use should remain somewhat flexible or the vibrations of the disposer might ultimately break the adhesive bond.

Regards,