in Honor of My Father In Law

[synack2]

I got my Reload Bench Out of Storage and Re-assembled, and got my reloading supplies setup. I have been buying different things for reloading over the last 10 years or so here and there. This was my father in laws reloading bench. He used to shoot trap and had a Hornady 366 Auto 12 Gauge Reloader. I still have it in storage, but I don't shoot shotguns very often, so I set the bench up to reload my pistol cartridges. I have them all de-capped and resized. I am still waiting on my tumbler to get here so I can clean my brass and then I am ready to reload.

I had many trips to the hardware store, harbor freight, to repair the drawers, get the light up and working over the workbench, bolts to hold things down, etc. This actually doesn't look like much, but it represents a lot of work and learning and figuring out how things go together and work.

[techmike]

Great looking set-up!

[SMMAssociates]

synack2:

When my folks built the house I'm now living in, a friend built a "workshop" for me in the basement. About 12'x12'. Gradually, it got filled up with "stuff", and after my dad tossed me out, became nominally useless. The wife and I weren't living here anyway, and I built a 12x14 workshop in the basement at our house. Then, some years later we ended up with four bedrooms (and our one and only kid). By then, I had an "office" upstairs, and a workshop in the basement, although I never put up any walls for it. (Note that my skill at carpentry is in the "what does that mean?" category. A straight stud apparently was immoral.)

Meantime, dad passed away, and mom needed what amounted to live-in care. My sisters had moved out, so Sherri and I moved in. My bedroom is the one I had before moving out in 1972. (I've been laid up since early 2020, and the wife is using what was our joint bedroom. A little more convenient 'cause I keep some really off the wall hours. Still it's growing more normal around here. I can't drive (can't get in and out of my car, which is slowly turning into a ball of rust) although that's about the only reason. Someday....

Meantime, I'm using the basement workshop area. Built an "office" down here, outside of the old workshop, and put another one up in the bedroom that I'm using - I wasn't all that good with stairs for several months, and the desk that once lived in the workshop is my loading bench. Kinda tight in there, but the top is solid oak, and about an inch and a quarter thick. More than solid enough to hold up a big Dillon press....

(In 2016, when it looked like Zero was going to get re-elected _and_ impose the same sort of silly restriction that are starting to look possible now, I dug out what reloading hardware I'd purchased before 1972, and bought the Dillon, etc. It's all living on that old desk, and I'm almost competent .... )

Dunno how dad would have reacted to the "factory" down here, but mom didn't mind. I"m not sure she understood what I was up to. His comment when I told him (years before) that I wanted some guns down here was "only if you've got a badge". I got that about 50 years ago....

Regards,

[synack2]

You should have bought a fake badge and a pile of guns, and been like "Okay"

[cpg]

Way nicer than my bench. Looks good.

[SMMAssociates]

synack2:

I though about doing it that way, but 50 years ago, getting the badge was fairly easy, and the educational requirement, while a little screwy, was fairly easy to get, and essentially useful. In those times, we shared the classroom (and instructors) with various local Officers, and there was a lot to be learned. Begging the City Chief was about the toughest part.

Besides, the price of the class was better than the pile of guns....

I took the course with a buddy, and after the final exam, the "management" questioned on how we did it. We sat practically across the room from each other, but still pulled the top grades. One of the "management" guys finally asked me (in confidence) how we did it. No way to share our answers.... I had to tell him that we were full time students at the local University, and getting good grades on a test of this simplicity was pretty trivial stuff.

Regards,