The Trouble With Templates

You find the company and the contact information and send a polite email requesting the template. A guy named Gary (common name in China?) emails back and asks you how many containers of his sinks you are going to buy to go along with sending you the digital template. You politely, but firmly, suggest that you only have the need for the digital template this time, and that sink companies who are looking for a good reputation in the granite industry help out fabricators in this way.

When you have no digital file at all, you improvise with a trace cut and go to the PhotoTop® software. This is the template we needed to make because Gary, the China-based sink seller, was such as ass. (All images courtesy Jason Nottestad)

He emails back mocking you, calls you impatient, laughs at you, and still doesn’t send you the digital template. True story. And when I find Gary’s boss….
Or maybe your customer buys a high-end cast porcelain sink with an asymmetrical shape. Don’t even pretend this thing is going to have a digital template online – it doesn’t even have a paper one in the box! Not only do you have to carefully transport this thing back to the shop, you still have figure out a way to trace the shape.
You flip it upside down on a piece of butcher paper and draw the shape through the drain holes. You then shoot the sink with your photo-templating system and compare the two. Both paper and digital are the same size, and both picked up all the bumps and waves a cast product can produce. You spend a couple hours finessing the shape so it will be smooth and acceptable to Mrs. Jones.
These examples might be a few of the more amusing ones. But the daily grind with undermount-sink templates is more about frustration. Websites with undermount templates can be difficult to find based simply on the name of the sink on the box. Even if you find the website, it can be difficult to navigate to a digital template.

Here’s a different name-brand cast porcelain sink that needs a digital template to get the job done right. Of course, there wasn’t one available, so out came the Etemplate™ software to create one.

Sink models created exclusively for Big Box stores don’t have online templates, even when they are made by major domestic sink manufacturers. You have to call the company to get the template – which we all enjoy because, being granite guys, we have nothing but extra time on our hands.
Sinks from Europe and Asia often need to be scaled from metric to standard, which is a confusing process the first couple of times through. Some online sink templates will not tell you what kind of reveal they are cut to … which can cause confusion if you don’t have the sink in front of you to measure.
Even sink manufacturers who post online templates don’t supply anything close to machine-ready drawings. Templates often have lines that either fail to join up or run slightly parallel with each other, leaving the fabricator no choice but to adapt the template – and legally void any responsibility that the manufacturer may have assumed in providing the drawing in the first place.
Oval vanity sinks are drawn with multiple lines (sometimes hundreds!) instead of the ellipses they should technically be. Curved corners of sinks are drawn as splines when they would have been much easier to get CNC-ready as a three-point arc.
If any of this confuses you, welcome to the brave new digital world. What’s a granite guy to do?
First, figure out a method to digitize templates. Most electronic templating systems are capable of digitizing, even if it’s not their primary purpose. Be ready to feather and finesse those templates. CNCs love straight lines, radiuses, and three-point arcs.
Sometimes you have to be creative to get a template into those terms. It’s handy to have a plotter available to print out a full-sized Mylar® or paper template to test-fit with the sink or cardboard template. The blueprint plotter at FedEx Kinko’s works in a pinch if you don’t want to invest thousands for your own. I’ve also heard of people making sink templates out of luan, fiberboard, and glass – and then digitizing.
Second, build your template library and protect it like Fort Knox. The templates I’ve found or created are stored on my computer, an external hard drive, and backed up electronically. I’ve heard of guys losing parts of sink libraries due to hard-drive crashes, and that’s a lot of work gone down the virtual drain.
Make sure the templates in your library are clearly marked for reveal. A digital photo of the sink, mounted in the field, is a fantastic visual reference to include as well, and especially useful if you want to show a client what a particular sink reveal will look like.
Third, join industry groups that share digital templates among members. The Stone Fabricator’s Alliance has a template-sharing site for members on stoneadvice.com that’s in its infancy and growing every week. SFA members are also fantastic about sharing unposted templates with each other.
Always remember that a sink template from an individual is that person’s interpretation of how that sink cutout should fit. The absolute accuracy of the template may depend on how much handwork they’re planning on a piece after it’s been shaped on the CNC. Always verify that it’s going to fit the needs of you and your client.
Lastly, keep requesting better templates from the sink industry and rewarding those manufacturers who listen and provide more machine-ready templates. Remember: closed polyline, no splines, clearly defined reveal. It’s my new mantra.
Jason Nottestad, a 14-year stone-industry veteran, is co-owner of Wisconsin-based Midwest Template Services.