GORDEE Matte Black Bathroom Faucet with Pop-Up Drain for Vessel Sink - US Standard 1.57-1.9" - Perfect for Modern Vanity & Lavatory

This drain is beautiful once installed and really compliments the new black faucet and other black fixtures I installed in the bathroom. I had purchased a new faucet, but it came with a plastic drain. Not gonna do it for me so I bought this drain. I did find installing the drain to be a little painful though. When I installed the top portion of the drain, hand tight wouldn’t do and unless you’re a plumber then you don’t have a wrench of any kind that fits that big thin nut that tightens the drain in place from beneath the sink. I’ve got a zillion wrenches, but I’ve never needed a pipe wrench before so I didn’t have one for this job. That might have worked. While installing the drain I used a fork drain removal tool, padded with a washcloth, to keep the drain from spinning while I tightened that nut. I scarred that nut up pretty good trying to get the drain tight enough so it wouldn’t leak. At the same time I found that pushing the drain down did not seal the sink so it wouldn’t hold water. So, the body of the drain didn’t seal and leaked plus the giant stopper wasn’t closing enough to prevent water from exiting down the drain. I found the white plastic ring that functions as a seal between the top of the sink and the drain was too thin. (It’s not exactly thin. It was just too thin for my application.) I finally replaced it with the thicker ring from the old drain. After struggling to get that big thin nut tight enough I finally got the drain sealed up so it didn’t leak and when I pushed down the stopper the sink finally held water. Perhaps this is just due to the sink I have that is better than 30 years old. It all would have been much easier if that nut had been thicker allowing me to get a bite on it. I used no plumbers putty for the install. That's old school. The plastic washers perform the function the putty would do so adding putty would have just been messy redundancy. Once done with the install I sprayed some flat black paint on all the scars I had created under the sink followed by a quick layer of clear coat. Even though I would rarely see the scars they would have bothered me until I did something about them.Back to the drain is beautiful. Weird thing to say about a drain, but it is. I love how big the metal stopper is. 2 ½ inch diameter. It makes it stand out better than the average tiny stopper. (Like the 1 inch plastic stopper on the drain the faucet I bought came with.) Everything on this drain is black covered brass, including that frustrating nut, except the stainless steel tail piece which is black too of course. The only plastic is the washers used to seal and prevent leaks. Despite the issues described above, this is a quality drain and I feel I made the right choice with this one. I feel the problems I had are not the average and most people won’t experience the same frustrations. Anyway, the drain functions perfectly now and the end product made the hassles worth it.