Decided To Rebuild And Improve The Old Reloading Bench! "Very Picture heavy!!!"
Hello Fellow Gun-nutters!
Two weeks ago I had a friend over to do some reloading. While we were doing our case prep, he made an observation about my reloading bench. He asked what had happened to the top area of the bench, where I usually sit and do my work.
Some what puzzled, I sat back and had a good look at my bench. It was a comfortable, spacious, 4 foot wide, by 38" deep, with all my associated reloading equipment arranged in its spots. The front of the bench was worn through the finish and was scuffing up the wood. It looked trashy! I had used this bench for countless hours and for more than 27 years! I blissfuly was so comfortable with the bench, I hadn't spent the time to maintain it adequately.
I discussed this with my friend, and decided right then to make a bit of a change for the old bench. I was presently between jobs, and had some time on my hands to dedicate to the upgrade project.
I spent a few days thinking about what I wanted to do, and was a little undecided of the direction I wanted to take. One morning I awoke and couldn't go back to sleep. I tossed and turned, and just couldn't get back to sleep. As I layed there half awake, some ideas came to mind for my bench project. I got up, and went down to my shooting/reloading room and started to take some measurements. As I started measuring, more and more possibilities became possible. My room was so disorganized, it seemed horribly full and congested.
I wanted to have a much larger bench surface, so I can mount both the RCBS Press, and my Lyman Lube/sizer for cast bullets, and still maintain enough room to comfortably perform other tasks not related to shooting or reloading. I wanted the top surface to be a dark, grain rich, Red Oak. And I wanted no holes what so ever in the top surface other than the mounting holes for my presses.
So here is my bench rebuild through pictures. I will put the pictures in order of the construction phase to see my progress.
Hope you like the pictures and enjoy the post!
In this picture, I was laminating two 3/4" thick pieces of 8' x 38" plywood. I laid out a good layer of glue, and pressed the two sheets together with clamps. I went underneath the old bench and pulled down the two new sheets of plywood to the old bench top by screwing them together. I used as long of a screw as I could without the screw coming out the top. I started in one corner and worked at an angle across the old bench under surface. The top two layers of ply wood sucked down really well as I screwed, and pulled the two plywood layers down, and together very tightly! As I got near the edges of the old bench, I could see extra glue seeping out from between the new plywood sheets. The glue had migrated evenly across the two contact surfaces very well! I continued drawing together the remainder of the under side of the new laminated plywood surface.
This picture shows the bench top after two coats of the stain/varathane combo. Between each coat I had to buff the entire surface with fine steel wool to ensure a solid bonding of each layer of varathane. I applied a "conditioner" to prep the wood for this project before any stain was applied. With waiting 24 hours between coats, my patience was tested! LOL! Patience is sometimes, not my strong point.
This picture shows the bench surface after three additional coates of clear varathane (6 coats from the start of the project). The Red Oak's grain is starting to darken and become much more vivid.
As one of the coates dried, I cut and fit some Oak Base board material. I stained the fitted boards with a more traditional yellow/amber hue, to contrast with the dark grain of the top surface. It seemed to Make the grain of the Oak visually "POP", so to speak. In this picture I held a sample of the base board material above the bench top to highlight the contrast of the grain colours. I was very pleased with the effect!
After about 9 coates of the clear varathane, I placed the bench into position in the room to sort of visualize how it would look. Note how in this picture, the surface of the bench is starting to mirror. I loved the effect! After more than a week of this varathane-buff the surface, varathane-buff-varathane, it was getting old! I hated to buff the nice clear shiny surface to a dull cloudy finish! But every time I laid a new coat, "POP"! The richness of colour, and the mirror effect got better!
here is a front view at that time
After coat 12 or 13 (it was becoming a friggin blur), I let the surface harden for two days, and then lifted the bench cabinet into place. NOW it was becoming a reality for me! It was all I could do to wait another two days before I started to place my shooting/reloading paraphernalia onto the bench and cabinet!
This is the bench after everything was in its place, with all the wiring connected and the room cleaned and reorganized. I hadn't mounted any of the presses yet. I wanted to wait another two days for the varathane to set harder yet. (I was maybe a little paranoid, but after this much time invested, I didn't want to have any setbacks).
A front view
I had to cut and fit the base board material for the presses, and this is the lube/sizer finished installation
This is a couple of pictures after the RCBS Rock Chucker IV was installed.
And a little "atmosphere/wildlife scene" for the room was set up that day as well. LOL!
Hope you like this post! It was very picture heavy, but I felt you might like to see it.
Take care and happy reloading/hunting!
Hello Fellow Gun-nutters!
Two weeks ago I had a friend over to do some reloading. While we were doing our case prep, he made an observation about my reloading bench. He asked what had happened to the top area of the bench, where I usually sit and do my work.
Some what puzzled, I sat back and had a good look at my bench. It was a comfortable, spacious, 4 foot wide, by 38" deep, with all my associated reloading equipment arranged in its spots. The front of the bench was worn through the finish and was scuffing up the wood. It looked trashy! I had used this bench for countless hours and for more than 27 years! I blissfuly was so comfortable with the bench, I hadn't spent the time to maintain it adequately.
I discussed this with my friend, and decided right then to make a bit of a change for the old bench. I was presently between jobs, and had some time on my hands to dedicate to the upgrade project.
I spent a few days thinking about what I wanted to do, and was a little undecided of the direction I wanted to take. One morning I awoke and couldn't go back to sleep. I tossed and turned, and just couldn't get back to sleep. As I layed there half awake, some ideas came to mind for my bench project. I got up, and went down to my shooting/reloading room and started to take some measurements. As I started measuring, more and more possibilities became possible. My room was so disorganized, it seemed horribly full and congested.
I wanted to have a much larger bench surface, so I can mount both the RCBS Press, and my Lyman Lube/sizer for cast bullets, and still maintain enough room to comfortably perform other tasks not related to shooting or reloading. I wanted the top surface to be a dark, grain rich, Red Oak. And I wanted no holes what so ever in the top surface other than the mounting holes for my presses.
So here is my bench rebuild through pictures. I will put the pictures in order of the construction phase to see my progress.
Hope you like the pictures and enjoy the post!
In this picture, I was laminating two 3/4" thick pieces of 8' x 38" plywood. I laid out a good layer of glue, and pressed the two sheets together with clamps. I went underneath the old bench and pulled down the two new sheets of plywood to the old bench top by screwing them together. I used as long of a screw as I could without the screw coming out the top. I started in one corner and worked at an angle across the old bench under surface. The top two layers of ply wood sucked down really well as I screwed, and pulled the two plywood layers down, and together very tightly! As I got near the edges of the old bench, I could see extra glue seeping out from between the new plywood sheets. The glue had migrated evenly across the two contact surfaces very well! I continued drawing together the remainder of the under side of the new laminated plywood surface.
This picture shows the bench top after two coats of the stain/varathane combo. Between each coat I had to buff the entire surface with fine steel wool to ensure a solid bonding of each layer of varathane. I applied a "conditioner" to prep the wood for this project before any stain was applied. With waiting 24 hours between coats, my patience was tested! LOL! Patience is sometimes, not my strong point.
This picture shows the bench surface after three additional coates of clear varathane (6 coats from the start of the project). The Red Oak's grain is starting to darken and become much more vivid.
As one of the coates dried, I cut and fit some Oak Base board material. I stained the fitted boards with a more traditional yellow/amber hue, to contrast with the dark grain of the top surface. It seemed to Make the grain of the Oak visually "POP", so to speak. In this picture I held a sample of the base board material above the bench top to highlight the contrast of the grain colours. I was very pleased with the effect!
After about 9 coates of the clear varathane, I placed the bench into position in the room to sort of visualize how it would look. Note how in this picture, the surface of the bench is starting to mirror. I loved the effect! After more than a week of this varathane-buff the surface, varathane-buff-varathane, it was getting old! I hated to buff the nice clear shiny surface to a dull cloudy finish! But every time I laid a new coat, "POP"! The richness of colour, and the mirror effect got better!
here is a front view at that time
After coat 12 or 13 (it was becoming a friggin blur), I let the surface harden for two days, and then lifted the bench cabinet into place. NOW it was becoming a reality for me! It was all I could do to wait another two days before I started to place my shooting/reloading paraphernalia onto the bench and cabinet!
This is the bench after everything was in its place, with all the wiring connected and the room cleaned and reorganized. I hadn't mounted any of the presses yet. I wanted to wait another two days for the varathane to set harder yet. (I was maybe a little paranoid, but after this much time invested, I didn't want to have any setbacks).
A front view
I had to cut and fit the base board material for the presses, and this is the lube/sizer finished installation
This is a couple of pictures after the RCBS Rock Chucker IV was installed.
And a little "atmosphere/wildlife scene" for the room was set up that day as well. LOL!
Hope you like this post! It was very picture heavy, but I felt you might like to see it.
Take care and happy reloading/hunting!
Last edited:
