I know this topic has probably already been tossed around. Wondering what ideas you may have for a new reloading bench. What is the best approach? I was looking at premade benches from Lowes and Home Depot. They seem expensive and a bit too flimsy. On the flip side, lumber is so expensive to construct something on your own. I would just like a good sturdy bench that will look relatively good and not break the bank in the process. Would like to hear ideas on the best way to go about doing this while trying to keep the cost down.
I have already drawn up some plans on AutoCAD but sort of put the brakes on when I started to add up the cost.
What size bench are you spaced out for? And how much do you want to spend?
I bought 2 of the Lowes 36" (unfinished) cabinets, and a Lowes 8 foot flat edged kitchen countertop, i put the cabinets at each end of the countertop, that left me with the center open width of 24" to mount 2 of many of my presses at the same time. I installed t-nuts under the countertop along with a 24"x24"x3/4 thick plywood glued and screwed to the underneath of the countertop for rigidness, and it is PLENTY strong enough to handle my biggest press. The t-nuts makes it real easy to change out to different presses without fumbling around with nuts an washers. I don`t think you`d have a problem with the Lowes cabinets as long as you secure them all together. I hung a 4x8 sheet of birch plywood at the rear of the bench and is attached with screws to 4 2x4`s to support the 4x8 sheet of plywood. We just built a new house couple years ago, i didn't want anything mounted to the new walls, so that`s why i screwed the plywood to the 2x4 frame i mounted to the back of the cabinets. I bought a couple of Craftsmen metal garage cabinets, those are attached to the plywood above the bench. I installed metal peg board between the 2 Craftsmen cabinets, that holds all my tooling for reloading, my bore scope, cleaning rods, etc etc etc.
You don`t have to spend that much to make something simple. What i built from Lowes, will out live me. Those Lowes cabinets are plenty strong enough to make a reloading bench, IF, you secure them together with your benchtop really well. Just make sure you secure your reloading bench to the wall, too, if you don`t put a backwall on your bench like i did.
I don`t know what size room or size bench you`re wanting, but this is all based off what i did. Your size will dictate what you spend.
I spent $159 each for the cabinets. The plywood and 5 2x4`s were something like $200
Craftsmen garage cabinets above the bench, i got those on sale for $99 each.
These cabinets went up $30 each since i bought mine. You can get the cheaper ones
without the drawer to save money.
