Browninglover1
Well-Known Member
When I got married and had to move all my reloading stuff from my parent's house into an apartment I didn't know how it was all going to fit or what I was even going to use for a bench. After being in the apartment for a year or so I realized that I never used my old desk so it became the candidate for my bench. Even though it is not a super nice desk I wanted to keep it in good condition so that it could return to being a desk when we're able to move into a house when I finish school next year.
I bought all the supplies from Home Depot and was able to build the box and all the shelves out of one sheet of half-inch particleboard. I bought a few packs of the little shelf supports and used some wood from my Dad's house for the backer. All in all I'm less than $30 dollars in material and about 3 hours of my time.
I played around with shelf depth and decided 10 inches was as deep as I could make them and still maintain a usable space on the desktop. The shelves will conveniently fit 3 bottles deep of Hodgdon or Alliant Powders and my also fit my 100 round ammo boxes. The shelves are adjustable in 2-inch increments starting from 10 inches off the desktop all the way up to 8 inches from the top of the box.
The drawers from my desk are used to hold my cleaning supplies, powder, writing supplies, and misc measuring equipment. I decided to put my powder in the drawers instead of on my shelves because it allows me to visually see every powder I currently have on hand without shuffling powders around to see everything. I've only kept them in the drawer for about 2 weeks but I really seem to think it's more convenient than when they were on the shelf.
Because I didn't want to really mess up the desk, I only anchored the shelves to the back of the desk on both outside corners (won't be visible when the desk is pushed against the wall), and to the desktop using two wood screws and L brackets in the front corners (only left two small holes that could easily be filled with wood putty). When the wife decides where it can permanently reside, it will also get screwed to the wall via two or three L brackets to make it 100 percent rock solid.
My press is easily attached wherever I find it convenient via two C clamps; this allows me to easily play around with different bench set ups and also allows me to remove the press and install my vise to hold my guns while I'm cleaning or working on them. My cleaning rods will go on the very top of the shelving unit, but I haven't got that far yet.
It's obviously a work in progress but for you guys in smaller houses or apartments I thought it would be fun to show you how I'm dealing with putting all my stuff into a much smaller space than I was used to.
Let me know if you guys have any suggestions or comments on things you would do differently so I can find the ideal set up.
I bought all the supplies from Home Depot and was able to build the box and all the shelves out of one sheet of half-inch particleboard. I bought a few packs of the little shelf supports and used some wood from my Dad's house for the backer. All in all I'm less than $30 dollars in material and about 3 hours of my time.
I played around with shelf depth and decided 10 inches was as deep as I could make them and still maintain a usable space on the desktop. The shelves will conveniently fit 3 bottles deep of Hodgdon or Alliant Powders and my also fit my 100 round ammo boxes. The shelves are adjustable in 2-inch increments starting from 10 inches off the desktop all the way up to 8 inches from the top of the box.
The drawers from my desk are used to hold my cleaning supplies, powder, writing supplies, and misc measuring equipment. I decided to put my powder in the drawers instead of on my shelves because it allows me to visually see every powder I currently have on hand without shuffling powders around to see everything. I've only kept them in the drawer for about 2 weeks but I really seem to think it's more convenient than when they were on the shelf.
Because I didn't want to really mess up the desk, I only anchored the shelves to the back of the desk on both outside corners (won't be visible when the desk is pushed against the wall), and to the desktop using two wood screws and L brackets in the front corners (only left two small holes that could easily be filled with wood putty). When the wife decides where it can permanently reside, it will also get screwed to the wall via two or three L brackets to make it 100 percent rock solid.
My press is easily attached wherever I find it convenient via two C clamps; this allows me to easily play around with different bench set ups and also allows me to remove the press and install my vise to hold my guns while I'm cleaning or working on them. My cleaning rods will go on the very top of the shelving unit, but I haven't got that far yet.
It's obviously a work in progress but for you guys in smaller houses or apartments I thought it would be fun to show you how I'm dealing with putting all my stuff into a much smaller space than I was used to.
Let me know if you guys have any suggestions or comments on things you would do differently so I can find the ideal set up.
