Lee bench plate short review

[Andy]

I bought the lee bench plate thing they have out now and have been using it for a week and wanted to pass on some info in case anyone is on the fence as to whether to try it out or not. This is the trapezoid shaped metal docking station lee came out with this year, it's only $30 and looked like a good idea so I decided to give it a try. I don't have a permanent spot I can leave reloading equipment set up so having a modular docking station is something I've wanted for a while.

Short summary: I think it is a good value and would recommend buying it if you use mostly lee equipment or don't mind a little woodworking to get the wooden blocks to work nicely.

- It's about $30 on amazon and comes with the bench mounted plate, two hardwood tool plates, hardware to mount three items and one steel tool plate
- The steel tool plate is clearly what it is designed around, and I think that would work without issues if you have a tool that fits it. The plate has square holes for all lee equipment and is said to sometimes work with other brands. The holes on it didn't fit my rockchucker or star sizer though. The holes use carriage bolts (I can't see a regular bolt working here as the head would raise the plate too far to fit) so unless you can make a square hole in metal don't plan on easily using this for anything it isn't already set up for.

- The wood blocks work for anything that doesn't fit the plate but you have to do some extra work if you use them.
- The wood blocks will work their way out from under the clamp (forward) as you use the press, you will have to come up with something to prevent this in how you set them up. There is room to do a bunch of different options and it just has to prevent sliding (doesn't have much force in this direction to fight against). I used a cabinet door sliding latch under the front of the mount. You could also drill through the wood and base plate and drop a pin through both.
- The tool block clamp bars require a phillips head every time you change a tool, if you wanted to do a tool-less change you just need some 1/4-20 hardware you can get hand twist force on like a J bolt or eyebolt
- You need to plan on through bolting through the wood blocks if you will be using them to mount anything with force applied to it. Screws ripped out easily on a moderate pull of the press.
- the rcbs rockchucker press just barely fits in the space between the clamp bars, if you have a tool with a larger base than this you will have some woodworking to do to make a rabbeted or two piece trapezoidal block. If whatever you are mounting is very wide you may need to replace the 1/4-20 clamp block screws with hex head bolts so you can tighten them from the side not the top.
- The wood blocks are very simple so if you have any 3/4" material you can make your own, they are just plain hardwood lumber

Hope this helps if you are thinking of buying it but wanted details. The system is solid once you have your tools set up on plates and I am very happy with it, especially for the price.

Andy

[VHoward]

I thought about Lee's bench plate system. But I decided on one from Inline Fabrication instead. http://inlinefabrication.com/collect...tem-base-plate
It is flush mounted so when you remove you equipment from it, the base plate is flush with your bench top. Nothing protrudes so you have a flate surface to work on.

[brtelec]

I have been using the lee mount for quite some time. This works well for me. I do not have room on my benches for 6 presses set up all the time. The only modification I have made to it was to drill a hole through the blocks and through the plate. I drop a bolt in the hole and it keeps the brackets from working loose if you are using a lot of force repeatedly. I mount different brands of equipment to it by just cutting my own blocks for the items that will not fit the Lee blocks.