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Posted: 8/17/2008 10:06:41 PM EDT
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I was planning on building one of these as a new reloading station. I'm using a flimsy office desk right now and I'm predicting it's going to fall apart any day now. I just have a question about mounting presses. I have a Lee Classic Turret Press. It has three mounting holes, two of which are maybe an inch from the edge of the desk. If the desk uses 2x4's, how do I mount these two bolts in? Judging from the pictures of benches I've seen on here, it seems that many of them use 2x4's as the desk frame as well. The only thing I can think of is chink some "grooves" into the 2x4 to make room for the mounting bolts. I have a piece of 2x6 that I can mount my press to and then c-clamp to a desk so please don't recommend this. I am looking for a permanent mount. |
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Various idle thoughts. Since you’re building it yourself, you could easily modify the plans to fit your needs. Or, as brentwal mentioned, you could mount the press beforehand (though personally I don’t like essentially permanent setups like that). As a slight alternative to that, install T-nuts in the appropriate locations of the top before installing it on the 2X4s. (I think that’s what they’re called, they’re T-shaped nuts that you countersink into wood and stay in place even if you remove the bolts – Lowes and Home Depot should have them). That way you could easily remove and replace the press if you needed to. You may have to cut the bolts to get the exact length needed for such an installation. Or use heavy wood screws (IIRC they’re called lag screws) and simply go through the top and into the 2X4’s as needed. However, I’d use a machine screw for the third hole – which shouldn’t be a problem. Or drill long holes all the way through the 2X4’s and use long machine screws or cut off pieces of threaded rod with nuts at both ends. If for some reason the holes goes along and into only the edge of the 2x4, simply attach a short piece of another 2X4 to the original 2X4 in that area to give yourself a solid piece of wood to drill. Or bolt the press to something like a short piece of 2X8 and then bolt the 2X8 to the table however you want to. |
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That looks alot like my new bench. I did move the vertical leg pieces outside the horizontal frames rather than inside to give the bench a larger foot print without increasing plan area. This adds a bit more stability when horsing around with the press. I had the cabinet shop at the local lumber supplier make the table top out of 2 x 8's planed, biscuited, and glued instead of the plywood top. The cabinet shop cut all pieces to size, so all I had to do was drill and screw everything together. Topped it off with a few coats of Minwax polyurethane. +1 on setting the press bolt clearance slots before assembly.  |
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