Sink drain installation question

[Muse]

Seven bucks is about as cheap as they get. The builders grade is around 15 to 20.
When you tighten the nut on the strainer you have to do it slowly so the excess putty can come out around the lip of the basket. I let the strainer rotate a little as I tighten the nut as that helps the excess putty squeeze out. The nut should be pretty snug when your're done.

I went back to the Ace Hardware today to get more putty and looked at their strainers again. They had an alternate set for $12.99. I think it might be the same set but with a different top basket, the thing you use to gather debris or stopper the drain. The fancier one had some kind of twisting seal mechanism, I don't know how it would work. The one I got you have to orient just so to get it to seal. Well, I have a couple of others I bought over the summer at Home Depot. They work OK and you don't have to orient them except in the rare instance where it got its parts in the orientation where the rubber bottom won't seat. I kind of like them because all I have to do is push down on the stem and 97% of the time it just seals. I seldom use the debris gathering feature, I mostly keep that stuff out of my sink to begin with... not always, but usually.

Maybe I should try tightening up the lock nut some more before resorting to taking everything apart and etc. I was kind of worried that I didn't have the basket centered when I started tightening up the lock nut. It's hard to tell if it's centered and seems to me that matters.

 

[Muse]

Took it apart this AM, reassembled. I think my putty application had been fine except for a tiny point where there wasn't as much and that did me in.

Today I used all new putty, thicker, applied to perfection IMO, cut a new cardboard washer by hand, cleaned everything up... I assembled and so far so good, I'm pretty confident.

I just took off a door down there so it will all dry out eventually, then I can finish the wood repairs and caulk and paint.

Never using metal again if there's plastic for drains available.

Wouldn't you know, the drain failed at the worst possible time... when the sink was full to the brim with water. That produced the force that broke it all apart. Those ~2" chromed nuts that go on the metal pipe?! The top one under the left basket actually had broken through completely. That's evidently what allowed the whole drain to break free dumping all that water almost 2 weeks ago!