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Sink Different: Native Trails

By Rain Noe - March 29, 2011

I know what you're thinking: "That's gross—a leather sink?"

But that's not leather at all, it's actually copper. A California-based company called Native Trails makes them, selecting copper specifically for its antimicrobial qualities. And also, well, because it looks a damn sight better than stainless steel.

Their manufacturing process is pretty neat: All of the copper comes from recycled electrical wiring and pipes, which are melted down and rolled into sheets. Next an artisan—you remember those people, the people who make things with their hands?—hammers it into shape, sticks it into a fire, and hammers it some more.

Some of Native Trails' sinks reportedly take 30,000 strikes to make. What I find most astonishing about that fact is that they got it at all; it either means some poor intern had to watch the artisan and count the hammer blows, or the artisan him/herself was sitting there going -WHAM- Twenty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-seven. -WHAM- Twenty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-eight. -WHAM- Twenty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-nine....

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Sink Different: Native Trails

Franxou

9 years ago

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I like it a lot too, it looks great and warm against stainless steel, but how can it not become green after, say, a couple years?
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Tathagata Chakraborty

9 years ago

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Cool, copper has class! Wonder what special thing they are doing to prevent corrosion.
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Rain Noe

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.