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Niki Happel of Upper St. Clair washes dishes in her custom-made, $2,000 sink created by the firm Custom Sinks by Rachiele. (Chaz Palla/Tribune-Review photo)

In the bottom of the ninth inning, a baseball manager often will turn to his ace left-handed reliever to get him out of a jam.

Dino Rachiele believes in a lefty-righty strategy, too, but uses it in making sinks. His firm, Custom Sinks by Rachiele, adds many individual features to its product, including drains for left- and right-handers.

"I had no competition," he says of his form of specialization. "I fell into a market looking for a type of product."

Those words get some validation from Christy Guthrie, a designer from Crescent Supply of Pennsylvania Inc., a Lawrenceville firm that deals in household goods.

Guthrie gets about 10 to 14 calls a year for sinks of a distinct size, shape or texture. Two or three of the customers usually cannot be talked out of going the standard route, she says.

"I'm stuck; I'm really stuck," she says. "I have nowhere to go."

Jack and Niki Happel of Upper St. Clair were looking for a special kind of sink when they were remodeling their kitchen. Workers were waiting to cut a granite counter top, but they couldn't find a sink to fit the space of the cabinets below.

"It was an unusual hole to fill," says Niki Happel, who purchased a double-bowl, right-handed stainless steel sink from Rachiele for $2,000. "But they were able to do it. It's wonderful and it's pretty."

The average price for Rachiele's handcrafted stainless steel and copper sinks is about $2,400, but he has made some for $900. The highest was for $5,500, and he once made a $4,000 sink for a potting shed. That compares with simple china bowl sinks that start at $57. Stainless steel begins at $200, and some copper sinks are priced at about $1,000.

But the custom-made aspect of the product accounts for the price, which is why Rachiele, of Florida, says he got into the business about three years ago. He had found few choices in sinks with his other firm, Luxury Home Products, which he still runs.

"We were stuck with maybe three options in the whole industry," he says. "I found a metal-working firm that was interested and teamed up with them."

Dave Tucci of Mt. Lebanon, national sales manager of Custom Sinks by Rachiele, typifies the enterprise as "definitely a high-end business."

The company usually only makes three or four sinks a week. Each sink is made by hand for each job. Rachiele usually estimates an order will be met in three weeks, but says they often are done in two.

Ergonomics is one of the biggest parts of his design, Rachiele says. Standard sinks are too deep or broad for many people, he says, and that creates backaches as users lean over to touch the bottom or angle forward to work faucets. The depth of the sink is adjusted to eliminate that problem.

The placement of the drain also matters: "People come in different sizes, and so should sinks," he says. To provide a more practical work area in the bottom of the sinks, his design places drains farther back than the usual center position. They can be moved left or right to ease cleaning of dishes.

"If you're right-handed, when you scrape a plate, you generally hold it in your left hand and scrape with your right," he says. "So doesn't it make sense to have the drain in that back corner."

All Rachiele sinks are square or rectangular. It would require machines to create rounded edges or hammer out circular bowls, Tucci says. The squared-off corners mean the sink bottoms are flat. That provides a safer place to stand things such as stemware, and it creates a better work area.

The flat bottom causes the need for what Tucci calls a "cross break," four channels that lead to the drain.

The design might sound a bit plain, but Tucci points out the firm has its artistic side, too. The "fire and ice" sink is made of copper that is brought to an intense heat and then doused with ice. The process creates a patina that is ever shifting to the eye. The cost? About $4,000.

The fire and ice model is at the upper limit of a high-end business. But Tucci says the basic aim is quite simple.

"We want to build sinks that make sense," he says. "Sinks that fit the cabinetry. It is taking the word `custom' to the extreme."

Bob Karlovits can be reached at (412) 320-7852 or bkarlovits@tribweb.com.  

This hammered copper double bowl sink was done by Custom Sinks by Rachiele.

Most of the jobs by Custom Sinks by Rachiele start with a visit to the Internet.

"We have to be very careful," says national sales manager Dave Tucci of Mt. Lebanon of the online sales process. "If it doesn't work out, you have a person who doesn't get what he wants, and it doesn't look good for us."

The firm has a few dealerships in places such as Florida and the state of Washington, Tucci says, but most of the work emerges when a person hunting a custom sink finds the company Web site.

"We get measurements from contractors, then send back our drawings and go from there," he says.

There are exceptions. Tucci went to visit Jack and Niki Happel of Upper St. Clair when they contacted him because they were in a hurry, and he was only a few miles away. But the sale process started in the usual manner.

"I was getting desperate to find a sink and did a search on the computer," Niki Happel says. "They had the sink to me in 14 days."

Doing business via the Internet makes it easy to create a national clientele and track patterns of popularity.

For instance, owner Dino Rachiele was surprised at the growth of appeal for copper sinks, which make up about 60 percent of his business. The copper version is strongest east of the Rockies, where the metal is used in the renovation of older homes. To the west, stainless steel gleams in its high-tech appearance.

Another recent trend is the popularity of the apron-front sink, a farm-style installation that has a front that is not covered by a counter.

"That's the most comfortable sink you can buy," Rachiele says. "It's right up against your belly."