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Posted: 6/10/2013 5:47:31 PM EDT
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I've been working on a new dedicated reloading room so I decided I needed a new reloading bench to go with it (detailed thread of the room construction in the Safe & Home Security forum). I've moved the building of the reloading bench over here as it doesn't have much to do with home security. Anyway, I checked out the Official Reloading Bench picture thread and got a lot of good ideas. My two criteria for this bench is that it had to be solid with no movement and be level. I've had several reloading benches over the years and I haven't been real happy with any of them. I also wanted the top and frame to be made from solid hardwood, which could have been a problem since the price of good hardwood has gone through the roof. Delivery of my new bench - some assembly required  8" x 12' x 2" rough sawn white oak - hey since I'm not willing to pay the price of store bought lumber I needed to go another route:  Starting to mill down the rough sawn into usable lumber:  It takes a lot of time to turn out enough lumber to actually build the bench:  Oak top completed. It's 6.5 feet long, 25 inches wide and just under 2 inches thick. The top is made from several different random sized oak strips that were ran through a thickness planer on all four sides. I have a little over 20 hours in just milling the pieces for the top.   Frame is made of 2" x 4" oak (actual size as I don't need to mill dimensional lumber). The legs are laminated 2" x 4" pieces. Everything is glued and screwed together:  Assembled frame lag bolted into the wall studs:  I spent a couple of hours getting everything level to my satisfaction. The cool thing about this bench is there are absolutely no shims anywhere. Each piece was hand fit and leveled.   Bench still needs some final sanding and then a nice finish. After that I'll mount my rock chucker and 550b on it.   |
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Quoted: Welcome to the Reloading Forum.  What tone are you going to go for with the stain? Something light I'm guessing. Looking forward to an update when bench is finished. It's taken me a little over a year to get situated and finish my reloading room. No stain as I really like how the natural oak turned out. I'm thinking a thick poly for the top and a wipe-on poly for the rest of it.
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Quoted: Damn, at retail that's an 800$ piece of furniture! I'm impressed. Be sure to stain that bad boy with something unique as the bench itself. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Welcome to the Reloading Forum. What tone are you going to go for with the stain? Something light I'm guessing. Looking forward to an update when bench is finished. It's taken me a little over a year to get situated and finish my reloading room. No stain as I really like how the natural oak turned out. I'm thinking a thick poly for the top and a wipe-on poly for the rest of it. http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg272/dryflash3/Home%20made/P4130576_zpsa60fb9d2.jpg Clear poly on white oak is a fine finish. Now you are just killing me. I milled down a bunch of small oak pieces just for things like this. That is some damn fine work on your part  |
Here's a view of one of the ends I cut off the top. One of the tricks to getting a good glue up when laminating is to make sure each piece of wood is milled true and flat. If not there will be voids between the strips and the glue won't hold. I also mixed the direction of the grain in order to help strengthen and stabilize the top. Another trick is to use plenty of clamps. Here are the legs being glued up:  |
| Very impressive bench sir! Brings be back a fews to when I was in woodshop, building a SOLID knife block. The teacher had my square, level, and true up every piece of that project. Only when I reviewed the finished project did I truly understand why.... Can't wait to see it finished! |
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You're going to need another one just like it as yoy can never have enough bench top work area. My previous reloading bench was 5'. When I put my current one together I went with 8' only because that's all the space I had to work with on that wall. Beautiful work bench.
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sure puts my off-the-rack-2x4s-and-3/4-inch-plywood-thrown-together-with-drywall-screws to shame! Very nice bench! That's the same bench I used for years! It did everything I needed. it will still be standing when the house falls down, just isn't much to look at |
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That is some nice work. I like the recessed design of the base below the bottom shelf.
I'd have a hard time drilling holes in that top for the press! Just curious, with your skills and apparent liking to wood joints, why the metal back straps. Was it just an easier way of attaching the base to the wall mounted 2 x4? And, if you don't mind -details on the flooring. I like the color, grain and it looks like real wood, not printed. Don't forget to get back with the pictures of the finish. |
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Quoted: That is some nice work. I like the recessed design of the base below the bottom shelf. I'd have a hard time drilling holes in that top for the press! Just curious, with your skills and apparent liking to wood joints, why the metal back straps. Was it just an easier way of attaching the base to the wall mounted 2 x4? And, if you don't mind -details on the flooring. I like the color, grain and it looks like real wood, not printed. Don't forget to get back with the pictures of the finish. I see another woodworker has checked in. |
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Quoted: That is some nice work. I like the recessed design of the base below the bottom shelf. I'd have a hard time drilling holes in that top for the press! Just curious, with your skills and apparent liking to wood joints, why the metal back straps. Was it just an easier way of attaching the base to the wall mounted 2 x4? And, if you don't mind -details on the flooring. I like the color, grain and it looks like real wood, not printed. Don't forget to get back with the pictures of the finish. Good question on the metal straps. I went back and forth on even putting in legs in the back since they carry no load. I actually lag bolted the frame to the wall studs before I put the rear legs on - so they are really more for decoration than for support. I thought about milling up some more wood and making them 4 x 4's but I didn't want to lose anymore shelf space. I'll admit though using the metal straps was a quick short cut I wasn't too fond of. In fact, the strips are only held in by two small screws so sooner or later I'll get rid of them and do something that looks better. Hint - the real reason I used them was because my wife was ready to kill me for spending so much building the bench and I needed a quick way to finish it. The floor is actually a laminate I had to use due to having an in-swing safe door that has limited clearance between the bottom of the door and the cement floor. I only had about 6-7mm of clearance and I lucked up and found the flooring for $0.70 a sq ft at a salvage store. I love it - easy to clean and almost indestructible. |
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I built a 16 foot long bench of red oak. I used 5/4 X 4 foot stair tread boards from Home Depot for the countertop. They have a radius/bullnose along 1 edge which I partially milled off, leaving a tongue. On the opposite edge, I milled a groove, and milled tongue/grooves on the ends as well. I made an 8 foot long center section with 2 4 foot long end sections. I used a total of 8 boards which were on sale for about $20.00 each, so $160 for the counter top.
This sits on 3 red oak kitchen cabinets, cut down to give a counter height of 30 inches, and spaced for 2 openings about 3 feet wide under the counter top. I laugh when I think about the Lee turret press on a 1X10 from college days. I would stack books, bullets, etc on top of it on the kitchen table to load 9MM and 45's. My presses are mounted, once again, on 5/4 inch boards so that I use a common bolt pattern on the counter top. 4 years ago when I built the bench I was tempted to bolt my 650's directly to the counter top, but decided not to. I recently upgraded to 2 1050s and would have had to drill more holes in the countertop.... |
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Quoted: I built a 16 foot long bench of red oak. I used 5/4 X 4 foot stair tread boards from Home Depot for the countertop. They have a radius/bullnose along 1 edge which I partially milled off, leaving a tongue. On the opposite edge, I milled a groove, and milled tongue/grooves on the ends as well. I made an 8 foot long center section with 2 4 foot long end sections. I used a total of 8 boards which were on sale for about $20.00 each, so $160 for the counter top. This sits on 3 red oak kitchen cabinets, cut down to give a counter height of 30 inches, and spaced for 2 openings about 3 feet wide under the counter top. I laugh when I think about the Lee turret press on a 1X10 from college days. I would stack books, bullets, etc on top of it on the kitchen table to load 9MM and 45's. My presses are mounted, once again, on 5/4 inch boards so that I use a common bolt pattern on the counter top. 4 years ago when I built the bench I was tempted to bolt my 650's directly to the counter top, but decided not to. I recently upgraded to 2 1050s and would have had to drill more holes in the countertop.... A neighbor of mine gave me a couple of those oak stair treads he had leftover from a job he did. I used one on another project and it worked great. If I had not got such a good deal on the rough sawn oak, I would done exactly what you did. I checked Home Depot before I started the bench just to price out buying these treads to build the entire bench with. Using oak stair treads is a good way to get quality thicker oak (even better when you find them on sale). I would like to see a picture of how you mounted your presses - I'm interested in doing the same thing. Thanks!
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My bench hole pattern is the same as the Dillon strong mount, repeated every 5 inches IIRC. That way I can move presses around, adjust spacing, etc. rather than have a dedicated set of holes. Tip: A piece of pegboard works great for laying out the hole locations, as they are on 1 inch centers.
Press mounting boards- I used pieces of stair tread boards cut about 12 inches long, and trimmed the bullnose offso they are about 11X12. I drill the hole pattern to match the pattern used on the counter top. I then mount the press to that board. Glad I did that when I first mounted a 650- when positioning the press board on the countertop I had to allow 3/4 inch of overhang or the bottom of the press linkage would have hit the front of the countertop. I also recently upgraded from 2 650's to 2 1050's and would not have wanted to drill more holes in the counter top. I will try to get pics this weekend. A friend used this layout and I can bring a 1050 over to his house and we are up and running in minutes. He has a single stage press and is adding a tool and die storage block to the back of the board which will have 4 die storage positions- I am thinking of similar but for primer pickup tool storage, etc. |
| I'm impressed! Beautiful design and workmanship. If you haven't finished it yet, I would suggest trying Watco Danish Oil finish on leftover piece of oak. link. It's easy to apply, good results and easy to repair if needed |
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When I mounted the top to the frame, I only used a few screws and left them loose so it had plenty of room for movement. I've left the bench alone for the past three weeks giving the wood time to get acclimated to the low humidity (50% - 55%) in the reloading room. Good thing that I did since there was some moisture still in the wood and I ended up with a small amount of shrinking and cracking. Fixed everything, sanded the top down smooth again and mounted it permanently to the frame. Today I got the first coat of Envirotex Lite poly applied. This first pass is a very light coat so degassing can happen without trapping air bubbles in the poly. I'm going for three coats with the final one being a very thick finish.  |
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That is a fantastic looking bench ! The top looks great with just the first coat on it. You really did a fine, high quality job with it. Congrats !
I put 7 coats on my top. 3 light coats of Minwax Oak Poly/Stain, then 4 coats of Clear Poly with the last being fairly heavy. You would be taking good advice to mount your presses on seperate boards which are then fastened to the benchtop. Less holes drilled in that nice looking surface. |
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Quoted: You are going to finish the whole bench eventually? But top first? Second coat applied to the top this morning - rest of the bench got its first coat. Added a little bling to the middle of the top.  Degassing stopped and the top is now starting to level and shine nicely. Next coat on the top will be the last thick application of the poly that will fill in all the voids and low spots.  |
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Quoted: How is it that you put the logo on the bench top? Also you say that you chase the air bubbles out with a torch, how do you go about doing that? It is a really great looking bench, keep up the awesome work. |
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Quoted: any chance of plans? A simpler top would be to use two pieces of 3/4" oak plywood - glued together and edge banded with real oak trim. Then just glue up the legs (mine are two 2" x 4") and attach them to the frame.
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Quoted: well done ,,,,, when are you going to pops it cherry .. 1st hole ....don't think I could I'm going to let the poly cure for about a week, then on to mounting my 550B and Rockchucker. I've had a couple of people beg me to sell the top to them - the look on their face is hilarious when I tell them no way - it's for my reloading bench. I'm leaning towards using two Dillon strong mounts - that way I only need to drill two sets of holes in the bench itself.
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| Look at the lee bench plates. I have all my presses and accessories mounted to blocks that slide into the plates. Two bases on my bench. My trimmer, four loaders, powder measure, small vise and a few other things that i can swap back and forth in seconds. And the plates are SOLID if mounted right. |
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Look at the lee bench plates. I have all my presses and accessories mounted to blocks that slide into the plates. Two bases on my bench. My trimmer, four loaders, powder measure, small vise and a few other things that i can swap back and forth in seconds. And the plates are SOLID if mounted right. ^^ What he said. Or look into using T nuts, put them on the bottom of the bench and all you'll see is a few holes and if you ever want to remove every thing to have a full flat bench you can. Mcmaster Carr T Nuts. |
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I have a couple sets of hole to mount accessories - case trimmer, chop saw, primer pocket swager. each is mounted to a board, and each board is drilled to mount to the workbench with T-nuts. Remove the board mounted tool and have a clean workbench. :-)
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