Jointing worktop near sink

Hi all, new on the forum today, posting this both on here and diynot.com, been using both for years for advice etc. Have a question regarding jointing near a sink and one regarding sinks themselves. If anyone has the time to read the essay below and maybe chuck me a response if I am very lucky, it would be greatly appreciated.

Essentially our sink needs to be placed in an awkward position, for various reasons which I wont bore you guys and gals with, it absolutely cant go anywhere else and has to be orientated with the drainer close to the wall near a joint......... The kitchen will be a small "L" shaped kitchen with runs of worktop approx 2.5m in either direction running at near a right angle to one another. We are going to use laminate worktop, most likely Duropal in the TC finish. The sink is a standard single bowl stainless with drainer.

The issue comes with the joint. Essentially the sink is going to be placed right beside the joint (I know the joint will need to be as waterproof as possible therefore sealed correctly, absolutely cant leave wet things on it and dry as quickly as possible when it does get wet) which will be a butt and scribe joint. The joint will basically run alongside the front/inline with the front of the drainer on the female worktop side. I know this isn't ideal but having spoke to quite a few people there doesn't seem to be another way.

Obviously once the sink is cut out, the drainer area will be cut out too and will leave us with a very narrow piece of worktop on the female side to bolt to the male side. We have had a couple carpenters out and after some humming and hawing all of them thought that it would be possible to get one bolt on at the back near the wall, use a piece of mdf in underneath and screw either side of the joint to reinforce the glued joint and transfer that load to the ground/unit. I have seen this described online too as it happens with some people saying its OK, and others saying that it will be so monumentally bad that the four horsemen of the Apocalypse will turn up and bring along a friend to act as a fifth. Well, maybe a bit of an exaggeration there but you get what I mean.


Should you still be awake and able to decipher the above, my questions are:

1: Does jointing the worktop in such a manner sound OK (I know its not ideal)?

2: Are there any sinks (preferably stainless) which don't need to have the drainer area cut out? In other words sinks which can sit on the worktop if you have a hole for the bowl only (I had heard that there are some like this with threaded bits on the drainer, bolted underneath and therefore not needing to be cut out)

 

Thanks for the replies. Thats a fair point Handyandy but there would as I would be using a standard stainless sink if I were to do that, it would still mean the drainer section would at the very least need to be recessed, therefore weakening the joint.

@ CGN, thanks for the pic, thats pretty much exactly what we are doing except yeah our drainer will be on the opposite side so closer to the wall. There is actually more material left on the female side of the joint you have there than I thought there would be which is encouraging, I assume you kept the back of the sink tighter to the wall than usual? Ihave been told that such a joint can warp when tightenin the bolts due to the thinner female side but obviously yours didnt.

The joint will be over a space where the washing machine will sit so I will support it with timbers underneath, therefore access to the joint wont be a problem at all but thanks for pointing that out. I would be worried though as you point out that it may break during fitting. Thanks for a detailed reply and the pics, very helpful. I think I will put up a thread asking specifically about sink needing no drainer cutout in the heading and see what I get back. Failing that I will take your advice on board, thanks.

 

Thanks again for the advice lads, if I were fitting the worktop myself I would probably end up doing exactly that. Have suggested it to the carpenter who I think will end up jointing the worktop but he didnt seem to keen on it, and wouldnt like to have to pay someone to spend that much time. Found a black placticky looking Franke which would work ok with a similar method to that, uses bolts rather than clips but again would be a good bit of routing work.

I have actually been trying to get my head around a single bowl without drainer and then just using a kindve portable drainer thing. Im still not sold on it but would solve the problem entirely. Sent out around 10 emails today to various manafacturers asking my question above, only Hafele have replied so far, a NO hahaha I found an Astracast one which is unfortunately plastic but fits the bill perfectly, full single sink and drainer. Unfortunately its very badly reviewed and when I went to b&q........ both the single and 1 1/2 bowl versions, were lieing on a rack and actually already badly warped....... So I dont know about their quality.

Think I will either chance the slim joint with a normal single bowl/drainer stainless or look into a standalone bowl (not finding any that arent silly money) so fingers crossed, thanks again.