Reloading Bench
Furnished content.
(from WoodNet.net)


During the Covid days, I took a sit-stand desk from the office and set up a little reloading table in my basement so I could reload in between, and sometimes during, Zoom calls and interminable meetings. It worked well enough for those purposes, but it started getting pretty crowded and I wanted something with a bit more real estate that wouldn't rock like crazy when my 60# roll sizer was doing it's thing.



I figured I'd build something resembling a traditional workbench, but modified for my purposes. It also had to be something I could carry down my narrow basement steps and make a hard right turn against the landing at the bottom. I didn't want to spend a ton of money, and I figured it could be an opportunity to get some hand tool practice in.




We were in a lumber shortage when I started this, so I spent $500 on construction-grade doug fir that was so wet it might as well have come in a tupperware bin to keep it from dripping everywhere. I also quickly learned that Doug Fir is not a fun or forgiving wood in which to use hand tools. I bashed out a total of 20 mortises by hand for the table legs, and while my mortising skills did increase somewhat by the end of it, my desire to purchase a mortise machine increased substantially more.






I also used a set of new-to-me saws from Bad Axe to cut half of my tenons. Then I decided I didn't want to spend an eternity doing that, and cut the other half with a dado blade on the table saw. I saved the most time when I found a cast-off piece of 12' T&G siding in the clearance bin at Home Depot for $5, and figured it would make a pretty enough shelf. I started out with the intent to make a bunch of through dove-tail traditional drawers, but in the interest of time, cost, and sanity, I also just knocked the drawers out of birch ply and Dominos. I wanted a user more than a work of art.



I will likely build an under-bench cabinet one of these days, and probably a hutch. But possibly not in this lifetime if it takes me as long as it did to finish this bench. My biggest mistake was making the top just useful enough that completing the rest of it always got put off for greater priorities. I set it up on a pair of sawhorses in my basement, and then the Marshall fire happened and it kept me gainfully and excessively employed for the next three years. So when I would get a little bit of time, I wanted to reload on it rather than get around to finishing the base. With family coming to visit this year, I took three days off of work specifically to finish it.








This is the longest tail to a project I've ever had, mostly because 60% of it spent two years under a tarp and a pile of Rubbermaid bins in my garage. I am also not terribly satisfied with the glossy finish on the base. But otherwise, it is a stable and rock-solid platform in which to reload, and it will likely come with the house whenever I sell it.

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