I came across a really nifty set of products lately on the internet that may be of interest to some reloaders. If you're like me you make do with whatever setup you can concoct as a reloading bench. I happened to buy two six foot high hammer together shelving units that did as advertised and went together easy enough. Tough steel powder coated uprights and cross beams pounded together then each shelf had four cross-members to help support a wire rack as a shelf. I quickly found out that if I had small stuff, it and the wire shelf did not get along so I'd buy a few of those Rubbermaid totes to hold my stuff and it would slide easily enough across the wire shelf. Well, just two of the units produced a full garage length shelving unit. I did find out that I didn't have to double up on the uprights where the shelves came together so I stole one and the two units shared the middle uprights. Also since I was going to have large equipment (vacuum, air compressor, tool chest, cut off saw, oil reclamation unit) I also didn't need the two unit's bottom shelves. So I cut the uprights in half and took the two extra shelves and make an extension (kind of an L shaped end to the shelving units for a bench). Then it was two solid core doors: One screwed from the frame upward into the door, and the second door glued and screwed into the first door. I had a piece of sheet metal bent to fit over the top of the doors to keep oil from soaking in and that was it for my all purpose reloading/do anything bench. As it turned out I had a six inch overhang of doors past the shelving frame. That is where all of my presses and equipment was bolted to.
Well I soon found out that with my Lee Classic Cast Press and a Corbin swaging die, I was going to be in trouble as the bench (read doors) wanted to crack in the worst way. So the nifty items I found were at http://inlinefabrication.com/ Their main product is their press frames. It lifts the press up to eye level spreading the load across a greater area of your bench making even a cheaply made bench rock solid, and in conjunction with their Ergo roller press handles your ram stroke can be adjusted so that the end of the ram movement or top dead center for the ram is achieved at just around waist high. So you can tip up on your toes a bit and put your whole weight into the stroke making tough shells or swaging a snap. He makes plates for a number of common presses or can custom manufacture any press you might want to mount. It's really worth a look. Smithy.
Well I soon found out that with my Lee Classic Cast Press and a Corbin swaging die, I was going to be in trouble as the bench (read doors) wanted to crack in the worst way. So the nifty items I found were at http://inlinefabrication.com/ Their main product is their press frames. It lifts the press up to eye level spreading the load across a greater area of your bench making even a cheaply made bench rock solid, and in conjunction with their Ergo roller press handles your ram stroke can be adjusted so that the end of the ram movement or top dead center for the ram is achieved at just around waist high. So you can tip up on your toes a bit and put your whole weight into the stroke making tough shells or swaging a snap. He makes plates for a number of common presses or can custom manufacture any press you might want to mount. It's really worth a look. Smithy.
