Reloading Bench
I need to build a reloading bench. It needs to be at a comfortable height, which would be about 44". It needs to have a strong top. And it needs to have room to store powder, bullets, brass, dies, and miscellaneous tools. It should have room for three presses. The scale, powder measure, and case trimmer will be located on a different bench
This needs to fit in my garage using the least amount of
space. So rather than a squarish bench with diagonal corners, I want a long,
shallow bench. It should be about 18" deep so that it doesn't extend much
past the edge of the garage door. It should also have a cut-out at the
bottom rear to accomodate the concrete lip on that side of the
garage.
I need to determine: the interior drawer height needed for dies, and the height needed for primers.
Top
There needs to be enough space between the top and the drawers so that the drawers will open without hitting the presses. What am I going to put in that space? On the sides, I just have shelves, so that is no problem. What about the front? How far down does the press hang in front?
I don't really need a lot of overhang. Maybe half or three quarters of an inch. The exact dimensions of the bench top can be adjusted to accomodate drawer or shelf dimensions.
The height of my current bench is 36", but I need to add at least 7" to that for optimum height. That is 43". If I go to 44", I will be golden.
Secure Top
How am I going to attach the top to the cabinet? There needs to be flexibility to allow the top to expand and contract. Lag bolts from the bottom through oversized holes is the simplest solution. I will have room for those above the drawers. But what about at the sides? This will be important because of the direction of the glue joints and grain.
Another option is brackets that fit into a dado. Do they make metal versions of these? I have to believe that they do. I will have to search for some. Ah, here are some at osbornewood.com. So, the upright shelf support at the front corners needs two or three of these on both sides (front and back). That, combined with seven or eight inside the drawer pedestal, should hold the table top down.
Or, I could have a "ceiling" on the shelf areas, and there are recessed screws coming up from the bottom. Can I have a horizontal piece there without splitting anything?
Drawers
I want two die drawers (one for individual rifle dies and one for pistol dies in turrets). I want a tool drawer. I should probably have a primer drawer. If there is room for a fifth drawer, it can be used for miscellaneous stuff. The drawers will be roughly 18" wide and 24" deep.
None of this stuff is terribly heavy, so I don't think we need rollers. Nylon drawer glides should be sufficient. Do they make metal ones?
The die drawers will have cut-outs for holding dies in some semblance of order. There should be 5" of interior height, so the drawers will have an exterior height of 5-1/2".
The turret drawer will define the size of the whole thing, apparently. I can get five columns of eight turrets if I offset the second and fourth columns. The minimum interior drawer dimensions are therefore 15-3/4" wide by 29-3/4" deep.
The drawer for rifle dies in lock-n-load bushings will hold an excessive number of dies (190 without even trying). I will probably take advantage of the vast space by grouping the dies together and making room for labels.
There needs to be a drawer for primers.
There needs to be a tool drawer with some dividers. The tool drawer really needs to be at the top.
The bottom drawer will be a large miscellaneous drawer for storing rarely used press items (old powder measures, etc).
Five inches of clearance below the top of the bench will do it for the progressive or turret presses. The single-stage press, however, needs a bunch of clearance, and it needs space behind the edge. I need to figure that out, but obviously I don't want to give up that much drawer space. So, I think the progressive press will have to go in front, and the single-stage press will go on the side with the powders (because their shelves are farther apart).
Height: The top of the bench is 44" high. I probably need a 2.5" skirt. The top is 1.5" thick, but I need a total of 5" of clearance for the rams of the presses. That is 36.5 inches for drawers. The tool, die, and primer drawers can all be 5.5" exterior height. That leaves 11.5" for the big miscellaneous drawer at the botom.
So, the drawer column is made of flat (jointed) sides with dados cut in them for each drawer space. A square ring fits into the dado, and that seperates each drawer. I could conceivably reduce the thickness of the gap to a half inch, but that would really only gain me an extra quarter inch of interior drawer height.
The drawer fronts should be flush mounted. If I was obsessed, I could dovetail them and they would never come apart. More likely, I will rabbet them and glue + nail the drawer sides into the front (and back).
I will have to pick out some simple drawer pulls. A nice touch might be to have little plastic label signs cut and affixed to each drawer.
Shelves
I don't think I want to make drawers for everything. Bullets, for example, get really heavy. I definitely want my dies and tools in drawers. I probably want primers in a drawer. But bullets can definitely go on shelves, and so can powder.
The irregular shape of the bench lends itself to having shelves on the sides and drawers in the middle. The shelves aren't very deep, less than 12". However, that is plenty for storing bullet boxes and powder bottles.
I should store bullets on one side and powder on the other. Powder bottles are on the tall side (the tallest ones I have are right at 9" tall), whereas I would benefit by having several low shelves for storing bullets.
Because of the weight of bullets, it might be a good idea to have an extra support column halfway in the span of the shelf. It doesn't need to be a full-width side, it can just be a "pole" of some sort, maybe a 1x3 with dados for each shelf. That way, we don't waste space by breaking it up.
Dimensions
Drawers will have an exterior dimension of 17-1/2" by 31-1/2". Four drawers will be 5-1/2" high, one will be 11-1/2" high.
Stock
1x6 for shallow drawers. Each one needs a bit longer than an 8 foot board.
1x12 for deep drawer. 9 foot board will do. Should I be jointing up some smaller stock instead?
1/4" plywood for drawers. A 4x8 sheet will make six drawer bottoms.
Build Order
I need to build the cabinet first, then the top. After that, I should build the drawers. After those are all finished, I should build the hutch.