Rocky1
New member
Last fall I was going to buy a miniature lathe and try my hand at turning calls. With the shooting in Auroa and election coming up, thoughts went toward reloading ammo instead, so I started searching and ran across a sweet deal on Craigslist. Lots of brass, in calibers that I own, 1 set of dies, and pretty much everything else. The .223 brass, nearly 2000 rounds, had also been deprimed, resized, trimmed, and polished.
Before I got through the book to figure out what I needed to get started reloading, Sandy Hook went down, and finding components and dies has been a serious challenge since!! As we all know. Many thanks go out to all the guys here on PM that have been cleaning their relaoding benches up, you've all helped immensely. Finally got enough of it together to start trying to reload a little, but as the boxes started piling up I realized I needed a reloading bench! And, it needed to incorporate storage, because there was virtually none in the shop!!
Top half of the cabinet below was all of the cabinet space in a 30 x 50 shop with 20 years of accumulated tools, parts, hardware, and other assorted miscellaneous goodies.
Unfortunately it was mounted in ill fashion and wasted a good bit of space above and below the cabinet. Therefore, I decided to build a 34 inch base cabinet to set it on and make better use of space, alng with building the reloading bench next to it.
In the course of thinking on all of this however, I decided a little more cabinet space and counter top might not be all bad, so I decided to add another 6 foot of base cabinet on what was the north side of the above cabinet, beneath the window.
I had 8 more feet of wall space that I was contemplating building more shelving on, at a later date, but as this all started coming together and looking nicer and nicer, I decided to move the old cabinet to that spot on the north wall, rather than leave it in the middle of the project. The old cabinet has some sentimental value, and the lumber in it is probably 50 - 60 years old minimum, and absolutely beautiful under all of the oil and grease that's on it, or it would have gone up in smoke.
Upon doing this however, the 6 foot section of cabinet and counter looked out of place next to the new cabinet because it was built to match the base cabinet under the old cabinet and none of the shelves line up with the new cabinet. I had 6 foot of 3/4" BC Plywood left over after my loading bench, so the 6 foot cabinet got moved down and storage space for the generator was added since I was getting real tired of walking around it by that point in time. Peg board was everywhere in this shop, in pieces, and the sheet behind this bench was moved off the north wall where the cabinet was built.
Since I'm not into standing on my head wrestling alligators in my old age, I decided to hinge the counter top above the generator to make wheeling it into storage easier. Which works very nicely!! The 6 foot cabinet here was NOT mounted to the wall, so that it can be slid out to work on the air compressor when necessary.
Next in line was the mega storage cabinet... This one is designed to hold the big plastic storage totes. It's 8' by 8' with shelves 2' deep.
Reloading bench incorporates 4 cabinets not quite 3’ wide and a hair over 3’ high. Shelves in the middle below the counter were recessed so you can slide up under there to work sitting down, and sized to hold military surplus ammo cans in assorted sizes, so I have a place for loaded ammo as well.
Top Cabinets are 14” deep, bottom cabinets are 18” deep. Counter top is 10’ long, 2’ deep, built out of ¾” plywood doubled, so it’s a solid inch and a half thick. BC plywood on top, had several large scraps of ¾” CDX laying around here that went underneath. It's all stapled, screwed, and glued together so it will never come apart.
Again pegboard was everywhere in this building, not sure what the wife's dad’s infinity with peg board was, or where he got it, or what the deal was. Not a full sheet anywhere, a couple pieces were about 6’ the rest anywhere from 4 feet to a foot wide. Decided to use that up top to compliment the old workbench on the other side of this bay, that I wrapped in pegboard I moved last year. And, it’ll come in handy somewhere along the way, I'm sure.
Didn’t really trust the peg board in the bottom cabinet doors, figured masonite down there would simply get knocked out sooner or later, so I picked up some 3/8” pine siding for the doors there. It’s much sturdier, and looks nicer.
Yeah, I coulda probably just mounted a press on the old work bench, but there was NO storage in the building whatsoever for anything. Old cabinet in first pic was about it, and that one was slap full of sh1t, even after going through everything and tossing a bunch!! I tossed a bunch more this time around, and don’t have half of what’s in it now, in that picture above.
Bench is really well lit, like I wanted it to be. It’s every bit as bright at night, as you see here. Have a 24” – 2 bulb fluorescent with 40 watt daylight lamps under each top cabinet, 18 in. fluorescent desk lamp in the center. That one was hanging in the barn, I assume it was the wife’s father’s and grandfather’s desk lamp. Looks to be 70’s vintage which woulda put it on Grandpa’s desk, before dad took over his position. I added an Altec Lansing sound system off my old desktop computer to this the other day so I can plug in the laptop or Ipod with 6 – 7 days of non-stop commercial free music on them! Got tired of listening to static and commercials. Not to mention we must have the most ridiculous excuse for a radio station in the world here.
Need to get a measurement on my glass and fix my window yet!
It’s far from perfect, but it ain’t bad! And, on the other hand, I tend to be a perfectionist so I tend to pick my work apart badly too. Just have to keep telling myself, “It’s shop cabinets!” Shoulda put nicer hinges on it, but I didn’t really expect it to turn out this sweet, so I just keep telling myself, “IT’S SHOP CABINETS!” Of course 10 sets of nice hinges, would have set me back another $50 – $80 in cost of the project too.
Overall…
-- 10 foot of reloading bench with cabinets, shelves, lights, air line handy for cleanup. Landline phone jack hid conveniently up under the top cabinet at left edge of this picture too.
-- 8x8 foot of storage cabinet
-- Just a few inches shy of 10 foot on the other section of counter total, with 6 foot of cabinet and the generator underneath.
-- 8 foot of cabinet under the old section that was moved.
So 36 feet of total cabinet space built, installed, and stained. Only help I really had was moving the old shelf over to its new home. Although the wife and her mom did empty the old shelf for me, so I could move it.
Didn’t varnish any of it, in fact the only reason I stained it was to keep it from showing dirt so bad for all the years it would take for it to yellow naturally. I was trying to match the aged appearance of the walls (20 years exposed), as seen above the cabinets above pics. Looks entirely too damm fancy for shop cabinets the way it is, and varnish would be overkill, so I simply didn't go there!!
But, rest assured, they are shop cabinets!! 5,000+ staples in them, 5 tubes of Liquid Nail, 2 ½ bottles of Wood Glue, and a pound or two of nails and screws. They’re solid!! In fact, I hung off the top cabinet over the bench once installed; it didn’t even creak and I’m 260+ lbs!!
New shop stool too. Northern Tool, $50/$74 with shipping. Nice stool, but not nearly enough padding in the seat. Bench is 44 inches high so you don’t have to bend over to work on [beeep], and regular bar stools are too short to fit it. This one is pneumatic and raises up another 6 – 8 inches works really really nice!
As for why you shouldn't build a reloading bench like this... What started out to be a simple little project turned into a $1000+ in materials, $500 in additional tools purchased to make the project happen, nearly 3 weeks spent scratching my head and building cabinets, and since completion I've already had a cabinet building job in a boat, and have at least 5 women that have projects that they think I need to undertake for them! For FREE of course!!
Before I got through the book to figure out what I needed to get started reloading, Sandy Hook went down, and finding components and dies has been a serious challenge since!! As we all know. Many thanks go out to all the guys here on PM that have been cleaning their relaoding benches up, you've all helped immensely. Finally got enough of it together to start trying to reload a little, but as the boxes started piling up I realized I needed a reloading bench! And, it needed to incorporate storage, because there was virtually none in the shop!!
Top half of the cabinet below was all of the cabinet space in a 30 x 50 shop with 20 years of accumulated tools, parts, hardware, and other assorted miscellaneous goodies.
Unfortunately it was mounted in ill fashion and wasted a good bit of space above and below the cabinet. Therefore, I decided to build a 34 inch base cabinet to set it on and make better use of space, alng with building the reloading bench next to it.
In the course of thinking on all of this however, I decided a little more cabinet space and counter top might not be all bad, so I decided to add another 6 foot of base cabinet on what was the north side of the above cabinet, beneath the window.
I had 8 more feet of wall space that I was contemplating building more shelving on, at a later date, but as this all started coming together and looking nicer and nicer, I decided to move the old cabinet to that spot on the north wall, rather than leave it in the middle of the project. The old cabinet has some sentimental value, and the lumber in it is probably 50 - 60 years old minimum, and absolutely beautiful under all of the oil and grease that's on it, or it would have gone up in smoke.
Upon doing this however, the 6 foot section of cabinet and counter looked out of place next to the new cabinet because it was built to match the base cabinet under the old cabinet and none of the shelves line up with the new cabinet. I had 6 foot of 3/4" BC Plywood left over after my loading bench, so the 6 foot cabinet got moved down and storage space for the generator was added since I was getting real tired of walking around it by that point in time. Peg board was everywhere in this shop, in pieces, and the sheet behind this bench was moved off the north wall where the cabinet was built.
Since I'm not into standing on my head wrestling alligators in my old age, I decided to hinge the counter top above the generator to make wheeling it into storage easier. Which works very nicely!! The 6 foot cabinet here was NOT mounted to the wall, so that it can be slid out to work on the air compressor when necessary.
Next in line was the mega storage cabinet... This one is designed to hold the big plastic storage totes. It's 8' by 8' with shelves 2' deep.
Reloading bench incorporates 4 cabinets not quite 3’ wide and a hair over 3’ high. Shelves in the middle below the counter were recessed so you can slide up under there to work sitting down, and sized to hold military surplus ammo cans in assorted sizes, so I have a place for loaded ammo as well.
Top Cabinets are 14” deep, bottom cabinets are 18” deep. Counter top is 10’ long, 2’ deep, built out of ¾” plywood doubled, so it’s a solid inch and a half thick. BC plywood on top, had several large scraps of ¾” CDX laying around here that went underneath. It's all stapled, screwed, and glued together so it will never come apart.
Again pegboard was everywhere in this building, not sure what the wife's dad’s infinity with peg board was, or where he got it, or what the deal was. Not a full sheet anywhere, a couple pieces were about 6’ the rest anywhere from 4 feet to a foot wide. Decided to use that up top to compliment the old workbench on the other side of this bay, that I wrapped in pegboard I moved last year. And, it’ll come in handy somewhere along the way, I'm sure.
Didn’t really trust the peg board in the bottom cabinet doors, figured masonite down there would simply get knocked out sooner or later, so I picked up some 3/8” pine siding for the doors there. It’s much sturdier, and looks nicer.
Yeah, I coulda probably just mounted a press on the old work bench, but there was NO storage in the building whatsoever for anything. Old cabinet in first pic was about it, and that one was slap full of sh1t, even after going through everything and tossing a bunch!! I tossed a bunch more this time around, and don’t have half of what’s in it now, in that picture above.
Bench is really well lit, like I wanted it to be. It’s every bit as bright at night, as you see here. Have a 24” – 2 bulb fluorescent with 40 watt daylight lamps under each top cabinet, 18 in. fluorescent desk lamp in the center. That one was hanging in the barn, I assume it was the wife’s father’s and grandfather’s desk lamp. Looks to be 70’s vintage which woulda put it on Grandpa’s desk, before dad took over his position. I added an Altec Lansing sound system off my old desktop computer to this the other day so I can plug in the laptop or Ipod with 6 – 7 days of non-stop commercial free music on them! Got tired of listening to static and commercials. Not to mention we must have the most ridiculous excuse for a radio station in the world here.
Need to get a measurement on my glass and fix my window yet!
It’s far from perfect, but it ain’t bad! And, on the other hand, I tend to be a perfectionist so I tend to pick my work apart badly too. Just have to keep telling myself, “It’s shop cabinets!” Shoulda put nicer hinges on it, but I didn’t really expect it to turn out this sweet, so I just keep telling myself, “IT’S SHOP CABINETS!” Of course 10 sets of nice hinges, would have set me back another $50 – $80 in cost of the project too.
Overall…
-- 10 foot of reloading bench with cabinets, shelves, lights, air line handy for cleanup. Landline phone jack hid conveniently up under the top cabinet at left edge of this picture too.
-- 8x8 foot of storage cabinet
-- Just a few inches shy of 10 foot on the other section of counter total, with 6 foot of cabinet and the generator underneath.
-- 8 foot of cabinet under the old section that was moved.
So 36 feet of total cabinet space built, installed, and stained. Only help I really had was moving the old shelf over to its new home. Although the wife and her mom did empty the old shelf for me, so I could move it.
Didn’t varnish any of it, in fact the only reason I stained it was to keep it from showing dirt so bad for all the years it would take for it to yellow naturally. I was trying to match the aged appearance of the walls (20 years exposed), as seen above the cabinets above pics. Looks entirely too damm fancy for shop cabinets the way it is, and varnish would be overkill, so I simply didn't go there!!
But, rest assured, they are shop cabinets!! 5,000+ staples in them, 5 tubes of Liquid Nail, 2 ½ bottles of Wood Glue, and a pound or two of nails and screws. They’re solid!! In fact, I hung off the top cabinet over the bench once installed; it didn’t even creak and I’m 260+ lbs!!
New shop stool too. Northern Tool, $50/$74 with shipping. Nice stool, but not nearly enough padding in the seat. Bench is 44 inches high so you don’t have to bend over to work on [beeep], and regular bar stools are too short to fit it. This one is pneumatic and raises up another 6 – 8 inches works really really nice!
As for why you shouldn't build a reloading bench like this... What started out to be a simple little project turned into a $1000+ in materials, $500 in additional tools purchased to make the project happen, nearly 3 weeks spent scratching my head and building cabinets, and since completion I've already had a cabinet building job in a boat, and have at least 5 women that have projects that they think I need to undertake for them! For FREE of course!!
