Mr. Tool Continues his Organization Spree

I am beginning to re-enter that zen-like state I used to achieve when my garage was perfect. Reloading destroyed the equilibrium, but I’m getting it back.

I keep thinking about sliding miter saws. I was trying to figure out what a miter saw should be able to do, to bridge the gap between a circular saw and a table saw. And my guess was that if it could cut a two-by-ten, which is the biggest piece of lumber you are likely to encounter before going to sheets, it would fill the bill. Does that make sense?

I made great progress in the garage. I cleaned and rearranged and planned, and I finished little projects that were cluttering the place up. And then I drove my car inside. Exciting. Some bedwetting eunuch egged my car last night, so I figured it was time to start parking indoors again.

I doubt it was personal. I don’t have any enemies in Miami. There is just something about a car with style that draws eggs. This is the second time since I bought it.

If it is personal, you have to wonder what it feels like to be that much of a wimp. Pretty awful, I would imagine. Cringing in the dark with your little carton of eggs, because that’s all you’re man enough to do. I hope it was some kid looking for thrills. A grown man doing something like that would be beneath pity. If it’s an adult, it’s someone who is terrified I would push his face in if I caught him. It’s flattering to think someone fears me that much.

I suddenly have a cute idea for the reloading press mount. It’s not the most ergonomically correct machine on earth. You have to stand in front of it to pull the lever comfortably; if you sit to the side, it’s a reach. What if I bolted it to a thick piece of metal–maybe 3/4″ aluminum–and turned it sideways? The aluminum piece bolts to the bench, and it extends off the front. The press bolts to the aluminum. That way, I could sit to the left of the press with the bench on my left, pulling the handle straight toward me.

Geez, then the finished bullets would have nowhere to go. The bin hangs from the left side of the press.

I’ll work something out. If the lever moved parallel to the front of the bench, the press might be more rigid, because the boards making up the bench run from left to right. I have doubts, though, because the press lifts off of the wood when I raise the handle. That suggests to me that the flexing of the wood is not the problem. I think the problem is that it’s damn near impossible to tighten this press down with two bolts way back at the rear.

One weird thing Hornady did when they designed the press was to lower the front lip of that little bin. The problem there is that if a bullet bounces, it flies out of the bin. They put little slots at the end of the bin, so you can slide a piece of cardboard in, and that’s how I keep my bullets from hitting the floor. If they’re going to make the bin that way, they should include a little piece of plastic to put in the slots.

I had to go to Home Depot yesterday, and while I was there, I tried to find tubing in a size that would slip over the outside of the tubing on the primer feed. Right now, I contain the used primers by clamping the end of the tube. But the tube is just small enough to get clogged up when the primers stack up a certain way. If it were slightly wider, that would never happen. Sadly, Home Depot didn’t have a single piece of tubing in an appropriate size.

Today I realized I had a giant pile of live ammunition in the garage. Not “pile,” really. But hundreds of rounds, in boxes. I moved that indoors. Not too useful without a pistol, but I have been known to leave guns out there on rare occasions. I suppose that if you really hated burglars, you might plug a gun’s barrel with epoxy, load it, and leave it on your kitchen table when you go to bed.