Losing my reloading room...

[Lost Sheep]

All the stuff I regularly use fit in 3 Toolboxes:

One is 23" x 10"x10" and contains my press (Lee Classic Turret), mounting system (a 2"x6" board that I clamp into a portable workbench or anything handy) a small "4"X8"X1.5" fishing tackle box to contain all the small parts & tools and the primer feeding system. There's room for a couple of manuals in there, too, but I store them on my bookshelf, with one next to the computer.

The second (15"x8"x8") contains all the gunpowder handling parts. Scale, funnel, Powder measure/dispenser and a set of Lee's measuring scoops/dippers and my loading safety glasses (as opposed to my shooting glasses).

The third (15"x7"x7") contains seven sets of reloading dies, mounted in their turrets inside their plastic storage cylinders, ready to plug into the press and use.

With my folding workbench, I can set up my reloading room anywhere in just a few minutes, even can transport it to a friend's house for reloading if I want.

Outside of the toolboxes, I also have a vibratory case cleaner, which in your case, I would leave outside the house entirely. But then, I loaded for 30 years without one at all, merely wiping my brass clean of any grit with a towel before loading.

That leaves only storage of powder, primers, bullets and loaded ammunition to deal with, for which I have 3-lb plastic coffee cans for the empty cartridges and loaded ammo (subdivided in labeled plastic sandwich bags) and cardboard outer boxes for the primers and powder. It all looks like nothing more than the normal "man-cave" tool storage space.

Lost Sheep

 

[Bayouhunter]

If you have to store you equipment in a closet you in my league right now. What I had to do was mount my press on a piece of 2x12 along with the my trimer and mount for the powder measure. I can clamp it to any table using pony clamps. It's inconvienant but it is what I have at the moment.

 

[slippingaway]

Wow, I was a little confused when I got a PM about this thread, if you look at the original dates it was from quite a while ago. I see PapaG resurrected it from the dead, so I may as well give you all an update.

The little one was born August 28, so she's just over 6 months old now. Her name is Eleanor Gray, and thankfully she looks like her mom. Here's a pic from Christmas:

We ended up moving my reloading equipment into the front bedroom which is used as an office/sewing/hobby room. I took some of the suggestions here about setting up my equipment, and mounted my presses to identical pieces of scrap 1x4 that I had lying around, it was just wide enough to fit the mounting pattern on the Dillon Square Deal. One piece has the Square Deal, the other piece has both the Lee single stage press and powder measure, spaced just right for my reloading style. Then I worked out the best location for the press on the beat up old farm table I use as a desk/workbench in there, clamped it down and drilled 3 holes through the 1x4 and the surface of the farm table (don't worry, the table didn't even notice with all the other old holes there). Using machine screws, fender washers, rubber washers, and wing nuts I tightened the whole thing down and tested it out. Everything was sturdy and worked great, so I pulled the Square Deal off, clamped the single stage press in the same spot, and drilled through the holes from under the table to make sure they lined up on the second mounting plank. When I'm not reloading, the wing nuts come off, and the presses get moved to the far end of the table and up towards the wall, where I drilled one hole each for a single screw and wingnut to keep them from tipping. It works great because they're out of the way when I'm not using them, but it only takes me about 30 seconds to get them set up and ready to reload.
The case tumblers are out in the carport, they won't be coming back in the house. It works out better that way anyway, since I can go start them and let them run for a while without having to turn the TV up to drown them out like I did before. All the powder, primer and bullets are stored in a pair of cabinets I mounted above the table, and empty brass is in zipper bags under the table. That front room is closed off all the time to keep the dogs out, which will keep kids out too.

As far as cleaning up the old reloading room, we started at the top, wiping down the ceiling and all the walls with a water/bleach mix. Then I put on two coats of the new paint, and my wife had the cool idea of getting some metal sheet cut at the metal roofing supplier and using it as a wainscoting, so the bottom 36" of all the walls is covered in "Galvalume" (zinc/aluminum coated steel) that has all the edges folded over and is secured to the walls with pan head screws. The metal not only looks cool, but my wife made up a bunch of cool artsy magnets that Eleanor can play with too. Then we made a bunch of passes with the Dyson vacuum to pick up anything we could from the carpet (a LOT of dog hair), then used our carpet cleaning machine to go over the whole room a few times. Apart from the risk of lead-containing dust, the carpet had gotten quite a few stains and other things on it that needed to be cleaned well anyway. The last pass of the carpet cleaner brought up cleaning solution that was just as clear as the new stuff in the reservoir, so anything that is left in there probably isn't ever gonna come out anyway. My wife decided the room needed some more color, so we ended up with a big area rug over the carpet anyway. I got some of those lead testing wipes, and they all came up clean.

A couple months after Eleanor was born I had to go out of town for a week for work, and came back to find a new color on the walls of the nursery. My wife decided she didn't like the other color, and painted it again while I was gone. So, there's now 4 coats of paint on the walls.

I'm not worried at all about the baby contacting any lead now, there couldn't have ever been much residue in there to begin with, and all the test wipes came up clean. Besides, now I have a whole bunch more things to worry about, especially once she starts crawling. Let's just hope she doesn't figure out the doggy door.

 

[Lost Sheep]

What a beautiful child. Congratulations again.

The sheet metal and magnets is a brilliant idea. Just watch out for any of the zinc galvanization flaking off. It is very hard for most paints to stick to galvanizing, but if you find a good enamel formulated for it, you might be able to brighten up the metal, too.

On your daughter's periodic "well Baby" doctor visits, she can be tested for lead in the blood (as can you, too). Good on you for using the lead test strips. The additional area rug should help, too and save some money (I was thinking that it made little sense to put brand new carpet down in a nursery that, in the next 10 years is bound to get a lot of spills.) I don't know how cautious is the right level of caution, but too much is never as bad as too little.

I guess the thread was worth resurrecting. If yours was not brought back, someone else will have had the same question come up soon enough.

Good luck.

Lost Sheep

 

[c.r.]

what a lovely young lady


btw........8/28 is also my brothers b-day

 

[slippingaway]

Lost Sheep, the nice thing about the Galvalume we went with is that the aluminum blended with the zinc keeps the galvanization from coming off. It's the coating used on virtually all the metal roofs today, because it just doesn't come off.