A year ago a friend showed me a large plastic box he purchased to work on his air rifles. The box had a couple of holders that came up out of the box to rest a rifle on. I asked to copy the pattern of the arms. I had some scrap lumber from an old piece of furniture that I wanted to use to build a gun cleaning and work station.
I measured a few rifles and determined that the station needed to be about 28 inches long. To make it stable and hold what I needed, it was to be about 14 inches wide. That would give me the sides and supports. I would just need to purchase wood for the shorter position, a position that would put the supports 18” apart.
Unfortunately the wood was not flat. All the pieces had a slight crown to them. I determined that I wanted to use screws and of course a good glue. After I put the box together, I sanded the pieces and began to notice the beautiful grain in the wood. I looked at all the screws in the side and wondered if I had done the right thing? Then again, it is a box that supports guns. It is not going in the living room. The screws give it that manly industrial character.
It is also functional. I used it to mount the scope on the Hammerli Pneuma PCP Air Rifle. One of the small screws fell as I was doing the work. It was nice for it to land in the box rather than bounce onto the garage floor. It could have fallen into a great abyss under the workbench to never be found.
When I finish sanding the gun workstation, I will pull the screws out before I put the finish on. They can go back in, perhaps as black or brass colored screws. Hopefully it will take less than the year it took to get this far.
