Edgar,
Stainless should pose no problems as long as your not using the sink as a
tray. You cannot make a platinum print in a stainless steel tray, you get
absolutely zilch. Eikoh Hosoe, the great Japanese Photographer, tried it and
wasted a ton of pt. When a pt compound comes in contact with iron or
stainless, the pr immediately plates out, splash around enough and you'll
eventually end up with a pt and pd plated sink!
I'm currently building a new sink for the darkroom here in Santa Fe. It's
going to be 16 feet long by 40 inches wide. This is about the 7th or 8th
sink I've built in the last 30 years. I've got a new idea for this one. The
shell will be glued plywood set into a 2x4 frame put together with deck
screws. I've used fiberglass before and it works ok. It's expensive and
smelly. You get head trips for months. I'm going to try some of that
rubberized roofing material called Snow Coat. Actually it's the gray
undercoating material, the white stuff is just the final reflecting coat.
It's supposed to be tough as nails and will expand 1000 percent. It is also
supposed to seek out cracks, fill them in and seal them. It's supposed to be
impervious to all kinds of stuff. A guy here in Santa Fe said he did the
bottom of his horse trailer a couple of years ago and it's held up under
rough use, horse pee pee and all.
It's about $20.00 per gallon, one gallon covers a 100 sq feet. You need a
number of coats, I'd guess 4 or 5. They also have a fabric used in a similar
manner to fiberglass work.
I can give more details if anyone is interested, the cans are at the factory
so I can give exact names or addresses.
Dick Sullivan
Bostick & Sullivan