Reloading Bench Build

[JohnnyEgo]

I took on another project that I suspect will take me a fair amount of time to complete, but figured I'd document my journey once again for your amusement!

I previously reloaded periodically by clamping a 2x4 to my work bench in the garage, and screwing each one of my presses into the 2x4. But I really hated having to stash stuff everywhere and having it be covered by sawdust every time I wanted to do anything. When Covid hit, I saw an opportunity to get more reloading in by taking a height adjustable table from the office and sticking it in a corner of my basement next to my work desk.



It has worked so well for me that I reload all the time now, and want to expand a little and have something a little more stable and with enough real estate to leave a few more machines in place. It gets crowded pretty quick, and shakes a bit when I have the roll sizer or deprimer going with the case feeder, which doesn't do me any favors with my temperamental case feeder.


So I went to Home Depot and gave them a bunch of money for some very, very wet Doug Fir construction material.


Doug Fir is a softwood. It dings and mars fairly easily when new, but dries fairly hard. Otherwise, the only thing it has going for it is that it is cheap compared to the alternatives. I spent a while combing through the stacks at Home Depot and picking boards that appeared reasonably straight and did not contain the pith, or core of the tree in them. But I couldn't do anything about them being so wet. The normal moisture reading for wood that has acclimated to my shop is somewhere below 5% on my meter. Most of these new boards clocked close to 10%. The 4x6 clocked in over 16%. It felt damp to the touch. All of them are also bleeding resin like crazy. They stick to the surface of everything they touch.


The 1x12s were at least dry enough to form a reasonably stable top. I started out by marking out the most usable lengths of each one, to get an 8' length, and then chopping them up.


They were just barely within the cut capacity of my Kapex.


Next, I ripped them into thirds. I could have bought 2x4s to do this, but the longer joist boards were drier, straighter, and had somewhat better grain to them. The 2x stock didn't have a single board without significant warp in the stack. I feel sorry for the guys framing houses these days.





Give you an idea of what I am up to.

[00tec]

I've always wanted to form a table like that

[BladesNBarrels]

Wow, SawStop and Festool tools.
You are my hero!

[Great-Kazoo]

Your reloading elitism is showing.


You making that full size, or going to save some for a faux butcher block?

[JohnnyEgo]

You know me, my friend. Just doing my part to keep the common people common!

Yep, full size. 8' long, 2' wide.

[JohnnyEgo]

Time to clean these boards up a bit. I'm going to use the jointer to make the faces flat, so I can get a good gapless glue bond. I don't really care about the edges yet, because I plan to joint and plane multiple pieces together as a slab.


Started with an empty bin, but that changed very quick.




Once I had a bunch through, I started matching up top grain and orienting the boards as pairs where I could.


Planed the opposite faces so I had things reasonably parallel.




And filled another bin.

[JohnnyEgo]

Next, I glued them together into two slabs that would individually still fit through the planer. I had to work fast here, and regretfully did not have the time to take pictures. Nothing particularly magical, though. Used a 4" paint roller to spread glue on each plank, and then clamped them together with every clamp I owned.

I ran each of the glued slabs through the jointer and planer to square them up. Then I used a circular saw and a rail to cut the ends straight.




Sealed some of the more egregious knots and defects with CA glue and sawdust.


Then hand-planed any high spots still present with my #5 hand plane. This left a level surface, but it wasn't smooth. Doug Fir is horrible to hand plane, and left a fuzzy surface with a few places of tear-out, despite my best efforts.


Finished out with sanding via 80 grit, 120 grit, and 150. I will eventually hit it with 180 and 220 before I seal it, but this is good enough to leave me with a flat, level working surface for now.


The easy part is done!

[Oscar77]

Ok, Im following this............ impressed.

[JohnnyEgo]

Turned my attention to my 4x4 legs. I leafed through one of my workbench design books, and saw a trestle table workbench I thought looked pretty good. Wife made it clear that anything with a permanent home in the basement had to resemble furniture, and I thought the design would fit the bill. I have not done any through-mortises before, so that will be a new experience for me. I also haven't cut standard mortises and tenons on stock this wide, either. Usually when I am using construction-grade lumber, it is for a quick knock-up or utility furniture, and joined with screws and glue. So I am sure learning opportunities will abound on this one.

Started by cutting the posts to length.



Then the jointer and planer routine started again.




These were horrible to joint and plane. Stuck to the planer table like crazy, and would periodically get wild blow out. Twice, they jammed the outfeed roller of my planer, which is not an easy task. But eventually, they squared up.


At least for now. These are so wet I still anticipate some twist as they dry.

Used a pile of clamps to figure out a lay-out.


Then started marking out mortises.




I have some big old mortising chisels, designed to do brute work in bashing through thick wood. And so I bashed out the first two mortises by hand.

[JohnnyEgo]

It took forever to do just with mortise chisels, and the mortise walls were ugly, because Doug Fir sucks. I drilled out the next set with a Forstner bit and cleaned them up with a chisel.