General – Hohenfels.com

Dusting Off the Bench

It’s been a while. The last post here was March 2024. COVID got in the way, and after that we were busy getting all the farm work done. Things have finally slowed down at work, so I’m ready to kick this back off.

The shop never stopped, though. We’ve been expanding the office, 3D printing and laser area. Here’s a look at the office rebuild:

New Office Look — The office rebuild, one of the projects we’ve been working on

There have been plenty of other builds, fixes, and “well, that didn’t work” moments along the way. More on those soon.

First, I cleaned up the site a bit. There’s a new banner, a new tagline, and a cleanup of some older posts that had broken links and odd gaps. Everything from the last decade-plus is still here. It’s just easier to read now.

Here’s what to expect going forward. More of the same, which is the point:

Woodworking and shop builds
Reloading and gunsmithing projects
3D printing and laser work: what I’m making, what works, and what doesn’t
Linux and home-server notes, mostly so I can find them again later
Whatever else ends up on the bench

Nothing here is for sale. It’s notes, builds, and lessons learned, shared in case they help someone else.

If you have questions about anything you see, or ideas for what I should tackle next, reach out on the Contact page.

Good to be back.

— Hohenfels Joe a.k.a Erik

Pistol Cleaning!

This is what I do for deep cleaning my pistols. I do not do this after every range day. I don’t want to get into the endless debate over how over you should clean, that’s up to you.

This is a shot of one of my setup before initial take down.

I use my Harbor Freight ultra sonic cleaner with a 30:1 ratio of distilled water:Simple Green set on heat for 16 minutes. 8 minutes flip / adjust parts another 8 minutes. Small parts go into a jar or solution filled zip lock bag.

Gun Cleaning Simple Green HF Ultra Sonic

Then I blow everything off:

Then I drop the parts in my Bald Eagle ultra sonic cleaner with a 20:1 ratio of Distilled water:Ballistol set on 122 degrees for 20 minutes. 10 minutes flip / adjust parts another 10 minutes. I put the small parts in a jar with the same solution.

I blow and wipe everything off then lay the parts out back on the work bench.

Then I put it back together and function test. Ready for the range.

Staying on track!

I wanted to add some T-Track to the end of the counter in the office. I could then do some medium and light work in the Better cooled Office area.

I started by making a couple passes with the router, going a bit deeper each pass until I got to the right depth. ½ inch.

Then I tapped it in and made sure it was flush:

Got it screwed and and tested with the Present Arms setup.

Works great!

Questions? Reach out on the Contact page

Hauling it!

The old single axle trailer needed a timber replacement.

First is easily removed the old wood, it just disintegrated, cleaned up the metal and gave it a quick painting.

Started sliding in the new treated 2 x 6 x 10 boards.

Only thing left is a small sliver:

Ripped a piece off the last 2×6, it is thin so I could give it a good bend and poof done!

Questions? Reach out on the Contact page

Pump House Work

We had some extra metal from the shop build and the old pump house was getting a bit worn. So, I took the metal and put it over the existing material:

Not the prettiest, but it works.

Wanted to update the the picture to show the new door I built:

Lee Load Master Mount from Becks Armory

First off Richard Beck richard@becksarmory.com at Becks Armory is a great guy to work with. The mounts are hand crafted in America with quality materials. All mounting hardware except the wood screws was also included. The wood screws to mount the rear bracket to my bench are not included because the thickness of my bench was unknown to Richard. My mounts were packed VERY well and received quickly after shipment.

Richard also said he can create custom mounts based on the same design. I just need to send him the measurements. I might get one made for my RCBS Accessory Base Plate. That will be a separate post 🙂

Here is a link to directly to the bracket I got: . http://becksarmory.com/product/lee-load-master-mounting-kit/

Below is a quick post of what I did to get it mounted.

First thing I did was mount the brace. I used ½ inch wood screws to get the job done.

Then I drilled the bottom 2 holes from back to front.

I held the mount in front and placed the 2 bottom bolts into the before mentioned holes. Made sure it was level and marked the top 2 holes as shown above and drilled them out. Then mounted it up.

When I do it again, I will make a jig with the hole pattern and drill the holes out that way. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that till after the fact.