Brace and bit faster than powered drill?

[Mike Holbrook]

Daniel,
I hope the information saves someone a little time, energy & money. I think many people will like the Ultra Smooth Wood Owl bits.

In the class I took on building Windsor Chairs we drilled all the holes for legs, rungs & spindles with powered hand drills or braces. It is difficult to get the pieces of a Windsor that need such holes onto a drill press. I think it is just easier and faster to do those holes by hand. Peter Galbert used multiple mirrors to help us see how to align the holes in the Windsor class. I know there are many other methods. I am taking another class at Highland Woodworking in January "Build a Pair of Sawbenches", with Christopher Schwarz.

The main reason I am taking the Schwarz class is these particular sawbenches will be built using Windsor Chair techniques. Specifically the legs will be attached to the bench seat using tapered mortise-and-tenon joints. I am interested in learning Chris's technique for getting those tapered holes in just the right place with a brace and 5/8" auger bit. The tool list for the class lists a brace & auger bit not an electric drill.

I had a problem seeing: two mirrors and a Festool drill and bit well enough to get my holes aligned in the Windsor Chair class. My weird vision and progressive bifocals didn't help. I believe it will be easier to see the angles using a brace vs an electric drill. I am about to find out for sure.

[Dave Anderson NH]

When I built my new bench out of white ash a fee years ago I stupidly went out and bought one of the expensive German 3/4" brad point bits for my electric drill to do the dog holes in the 3 1/8" thick top. I drilled about half a dozen holes slowly and with great trouble holding the drill perpendicular to the top. As Steve Voigt said, the drill wants to twist in your hand and is difficult to control. I gave up and pulled out my largest swing brace and a 3/4" Russell Jennings bit. It was indeed faster than the electric drill, was easier to keep perpendicular, and bored a much cleaner hole. Wrestling with the brad point in in a hand electric drill with an angled handle makes it harder maintain a consistent perpendicularity. The overall verticality of a hand brace and bit gives a much better and easier to maintain vertical visual reference.

[Mike Holbrook]

Dave apparently we have had some similar frustrations trying to line up bits in electric drills. In the Galbert class we all used drill bits that Galbert made himself. Peter ground regular bits into something with an extra large center portion that was similar to a brad point but larger. The bits were made to work in electric drills. Peter spends large amounts of time, even in classes, trying to improve his jigs, tools and methods for making Windsors. Peter redesigned several of the jigs he used during the class I took. Peter has been putting lots of time into a book on making Windsor Chairs that he has been writing and illustrating himself. Schwarz is helping Peter produce and publish the book through Lost Art Press. Schwarz's Blog yesterday discusses the 500+ pages of illustrations Peter just sent him...I am hoping Peter will offer a few new slants on aligning drills and bits for drilling those complex holes when his book comes out. I hope Schwarz will have some ideas to present at the class he is teaching at Highland Woodworking too.

I had a real problem seeing & aligning all the objects Peter uses to position drill bits & drills. We put sighting tape on my drill and Peter even made changes to a drill alignment jig he made for people who had trouble. I was wearing single focus glasses in the class instead of my progressive lenses. I think my problem was my eyes could not focus on the different focal points clearly enough to see what some others could see.

I see Dave wears glasses too. I know older eyes are not as quick to focus and may not have the range of focus younger eyes do. I have very different issues in my two eyes which causes them to see things differently, making them hard to correct to equal levels. The dominant eye tends to take over except when the object being viewed is too far toward the less dominant eye. If one also needs bifocals/progressives...Sometimes all these issues interfere with visual acuity, especially when trying to visually align objects at multiple focal points, angles...

[David Weaver]

I've been turned around by a drill before, but I do most of my drilling with power drills, except for the oddball auger drill. If I had to do a bench surface, I'd do hand auger, too. If I just need to blast a hole in something, I get a cheap spoon bit and put it in a power drill.

I cannot run an auger faster than I can use a spoon bit, but I can't use a spoon bit to do very accurate work freehand. The blowout on the back side of an inaccessible cut is pretty heinous on either type.

I guess a power tooler would talk about the virtues of a clean cutting forstner bit, but those cut accurately over a distance only in a drill press.

The only real grip I've ever had about augers is that if you're drilling into very hard quartered material, the threads often won't be able to grip because the lead screw will get into early wood only and plug up on it since it has no strength.

[Andrew Bell]

I've used forstner bits quite successfully with a brace and had a nice accurate result.

I find that they can be faster and more reliable than a power drill when dealing with screwing or drilling big bits of timber.

I built a 30m (100ft) long retaining wall with three levels of treated pine sleepers.

The 18v impact driver I was using for driving coach screws and making holes for carriage bolts struggled unless using fresh batteries and constantly needed recharging. Getting sick of this I was driving 6" screws using a hex adaptor for my brace faster than I was going with a fresh 18v battery. I only slowed down close to the end as I found that with the brace I could snap the bolts and screws, something I could not with the power drill. I also had found the impact driver would cam out of the square heads of what i was screwing and try to strip the heads, did not have this with the brace. I also found you can use power auger bits in the brace depending on the precision that you require.

[Dave Lehnert]

Where do you find them? I don't even know where to look.

I know some folks go to garage sales, estate sales and auctions. I don't have the time to get to those.

Any antique shop or flea market. I found them at Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul store. I have never paid more than $10 for a drill. Bits are a little harder to find.
Do you live close to the Heartville Market? http://www.hartvillemarketplace.com/ The flea market in the summer time is huge. On the same grounds as Hartville Hardware. http://www.hartvilletool.com/

[Mike Holbrook]

Traditional Woodworker sells the Wood Owl drill bits. Sizes 3/8-3/4" cost 16-$17 each which is actually a little less than what they sell new versions of solid center, Irwin or Jennings pattern, reproductions for. I think the Wood Owl bits are a tougher more durable product that actually work better in most braces. I searched auction sites for quite a while several years ago before I found the Irwin and Jennings bit sets I bought. The Jennings are usually more expensive but sets of either that are in decent condition can be quite expensive and contain bits that are damaged or worthless. My Irwin set seemed to be in very good condition until I started trying to use them and found out how many had shafts that were not straight.

[Derek Cohen]

It is not so much that the brace is faster than a power drill; it is that the brace has so much more torque. It can take less time to drill a wide hole because a power drill simply cannot handle the demands of a wide bit ... like the tortoise and the hare, one plods on and gets there ...

a 3/4" Jennings bit, a 12" MF brace, and 3 1/2" of Oak ...








Regards from Perth

Derek

[Pat Barry]

[QUOTE=Derek Cohen;2345636]It is not so much that the brace is faster than a power drill; it is that the brace has so much more torque. It can take less time to drill a wide hole because a power drill simply cannot handle the demands of a wide bit ... like the tortoise and the hare, one plods on and gets there ...

a 3/4" Jennings bit, a 12" MF brace, and 3 1/2" of Oak ...



[QUOTE]
Is that a ratcheting brace Derek? I had no idea you could use one of those to make a hole so close to an obstruction.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi Pat

Not ratcheting - the wall just looks close

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Daniel Rode]

Hartville is not too far away; an hour or maybe less. I'll have to check it out. The Goodwill, St. Vincint de Paul and ReStore outlets are promising as well.

Any antique shop or flea market. I found them at Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul store. I have never paid more than $10 for a drill. Bits are a little harder to find.
Do you live close to the Heartville Market? http://www.hartvillemarketplace.com/ The flea market in the summer time is huge. On the same grounds as Hartville Hardware. http://www.hartvilletool.com/

[lowell holmes]

I have a Stanley "Bell" brace that I'm happy with. It's better than the Stanley brace I have, but the plain Stanley is OK.

There are some on the auction site.

[Jim Koepke]

The Goodwill, St. Vincint de Paul and ReStore outlets are promising as well.

The inventory in these stores changes on an almost daily basis.

When I am in the mood for rust hunting, a little extra time is added to my trips into town to allow me to swing in on these places.

Sometimes there book selection is also given a look. Remembering the spines of the books of interest helps me get a quick look incase there might be a good bargain.

jtk