Brace, Bit - and a man called Nancy...

[John Dykes]

So, thanks to Sandy and Randy - I now own 3 braces. Cleaning the 2100 inside and out was great fun - and it now works like butter.

Additionally, I overpaid for a box of Jennings bits from eBay, and bought a file from LN.

I grabbed one of the bigger bits, lightly brushed it with a file, and took it to some ash. Now, I'm no herculean man - but I'm not a 100 pound weakling either. I heaved, I pulled, I yanked - and Lord, that bit was the very Devil to move - even with a 12" sweep (thanks Randy). Boring a 3/4" in 3 1/2" of ash may be the death of me.... much less a bench full of them!

Normally, I'd say I was dumb and my technique was bad, but there ain't much to this, is there?! The bits don't seem dull, but I don't know. Is it just that ash is gonna fight me?

Or should I just change my name to Nancy?

- Nancy
(formerly known as jbd in Denver)

* My 1 1/2" Beall wood screw threader came in yesterday. Hopefully sometime tomorrow I'll have a big twin screw on the front on my bench!

[Robert Rozaieski]

Deep 3/4" hole in ash won't be like drilling a pilot hole for a screw but not impossible. When I drill a new 3/4" holdfast hole in my birch benchtop, I have to kneel on the benchtop and put my weight over the brace, but i get through with a little sweat. Sounds like you are right on par. These holes are large and you are removing a lot of real hard wood. Try doing a piece of scrap with a power drill and you will have a hard time with that too, if the drill can even generate enough torque for a hole that large, that deep at all. A cordless one certainly won't be able to do it. You need a lot of torque to turn one of these larger bits. It's not you....Nancy !

There's a reason you don't see brace bits larger than 1" too often. Most bits larger than 1" have long, heavy shanks and a large "T" handle as you just can't generate enough torque with a brace to turn a bit much larger than 1" unless you have arms like Hulk Hogan.

[Gary Herrmann]

I used an 2" auger handle to drill a hole through 2" pine once. I'm 6'7" and weigh 240 and it wasn't fun.

Nancy, are the spurs sharp? Mine aren't chisel sharp, buy I can feel the edge on them. Having a sharp lead screw helps too. But like Robert said, with ash, body weight will help a lot.

[Bill Houghton]

(old New York tourist joke: punchline being "practice, man, practice.")

But, in this case, the punchline is "sharpen, man, sharpen." I've found that a couple of minutes with a file on the spurs and cutting edge makes a world of difference in how much sweat drips on the wood.

Also, you do want your lead screw clean and sharp. The best suggestion I've ever seen for this (have yet to try this, but I trust the report of the person who posted it) is to start to drill a hole in pine or another softwood until you've got the lead screw hole; pour/drip in a little abrasive of some sort, like automotive valve grinding compound, and run the screw in and out until it's clean and shiny.

Also also, you want the inside and outside of the body of the bit to be shiny. If it's not, buy a fine grit belt sander belt (or, if you own a belt sander, take a used fine grit one - even better), rip off strips, and use them shoe shine fashion up and down the bit until it's bright. You can sometimes get these pre-made, including in some auto parts stores. The finest grit you can get is about right.

The older I get, the more I think that sharpness and clean working surfaces are the majority of "tuning" a tool.

[Bill Houghton]

A friend of mine, now a police lieutenant at a nearby university, could put me on the ground in about one second - though Molly prefers to use talking away conflicts when she can.

[Gary Herrmann]

The valve compound routine works very well. I did it for a set of bits I rehabbed.

And I've been married to a former jock/electrical engineer waay too long to disparage anything even remotely female.

[David Keller NC]

One thing to look at is whether a honing stone has ever touched the outside of the bit. If it has, it's likely ruined without a machinist's attention. The reason is that the spiral auger for one of these bits intended for a brace is parallel - that is, the cutting spurs are at least as large as, and definitely the same diameter as, the spiral flutes. If the outside is sharpened, then the spurs can't cut a large enough hole for the spiral, and the bit will turn only with the greatest of difficulty.

Second thing is to make sure the spurs are sharp, and that inside bevel cutters are also similarly honed. They should be sharp enough to where you fear to drag your finger across them or you'll get cut. This makes an enormous difference in how difficult the hole is to bore. If they need sharpening, start with an auger bit file (you can get them at a number of places, lie-nielsen and The Best Things being two), finish with a honing slipstone.

Finally, realize that these bits are not designed to drill into end grain, only face grain and edge grain. The reason is that the spiral screw at the tip is designed to draw the bit flutes into the hole, and if you're drilling end grain, the threads on the end quickly get clogged with broken bits of wood, and the whole thing comes to a screeching halt. That doesn't mean you can't bore end grain with one of these in certain circumstances, but a "nose bit" works far better (and that's what a nose bit was designed for).

While it should take effort to spin the brace around, it should take very little effort to force the bit into the wood in the vertical direction. If it does, that's likely a problem with the spiral screw at the tip, dull spurs or a combination.

[Bill White]

for the old fashioned, two speed breast drill. Though I don't pull it from the chest often, it's the answer when you're needin' some beef behind the bit.
Bill

[Chris Kennedy]

Another thing to check is to see if there are any burrs on the pilot threads. My dad had a bit with a burr on the pilot threads, and it was ridiculous to try to use. It wouldn't bite properly, and it would just spin and spin with almost nothing coming out because it wouldn't really bite in.

Cheers,

Chris

[David Martino]

ahem...

shouldn't there be some pictures? Otherwise, didn't happen x 3...

-Dave, who likes braces

PS Used a 10-inch Yankee drilling some 1-1.25 holes in oak last year and definitely broke a sweat. Sharpening with the augur file helped (my first time so skill level required isn't high). The ends of the bits actually got pretty warm from the pressure/amount of work they're doing.

[Tim Sgrazzutti]

Check the lead screw, they used to come in different pitches. Coarse for softwoods, fine for hardwoods, and medium if you only had one set. It's possible that the set you got on ePay have coarse lead screws, and it's trying to take too big a bite per revolution for your super hard ash.

[Tony Zaffuto]

Now this is not really dealing with the original post, except to comment on "paying more for Jennings bits on Ebay than I should have". I spent yesterday at the Brown sale that proceeds the Brown/Fine Tool Journal auction to be held later this morning.

Anyhow, at least for (vintage)tools I was looking at, prices seem to be tracking lower. For example, I noticed three boxed(3 tier) sets of Jennings bits. Prices ranged from a low of $45 with a used condition to a high of $140 with a box that looked excellent and some of the bits still wrapped in the tissue they came with when new(this group was the Stanley Jennings).

My point is that there are many fine vintage tool dealers out there.

T.Z.

[Greg Cole]

Sounds like a twist on a Johnny Cash song....
Can't help but think of Peter Boyle from Everyone Loves Ray on the "nancy" comment either.
Regardless of tool and or material, when hogging out alot of material is takes alot of time and effort not too mention sharpness.

[Jim Koepke]

Sharpness, sharpness, sharpness!

If there is tear out at the entry point, then the spurs may be dull. This shows clearly in soft woods.

Another point that may need attention, make sure both sides are cutting equally. Watch the chips coming out as you start drilling. If one side is putting out more chips than the other, then one cutter is doing all the work. The one doing all the work needs to be filed a bit to get on the same plane as the other.

When sharpening a bit, make sure to not take more off of one side than the other.

A good sharp bit will bore a nice clean hole, even in soft woods.

A large bit does require a bit more work, but if sharp, it will pull itself through the wood and all the work is in the turning.

For some woods and especially near the end of a piece, my method is to drill a pilot hole a little less than half the lead screw's maximum diameter to avoid splitting the wood.

Here is one site showing a little about sharpening:

http://www.fine-tools.com/G-augerbitfile.html

jim

[Glenn Crocker]

I’ll second David Keller – hone the bit.
You will indeed find a significant difference in boring ease if you follow the auger file with some method of honing. I use a ¼ inch square India stone and then a ¼ inch square soft Arkansas stone on the inside surface of the cutting spurs and on both surfaces of the cutting lips, taking care not to alter the factory grind angle. You don’t need mirror polished surfaces, just get a good sharp honed edge.
A few years back on a timber frame project, I honed and used a single flute one inch auger bit in a ten inch brace to bore peg holes through 8x8 white pine. We decided to time each other with the brace & bit in 8x8 offcuts– we were boring through holes in just over 2 minutes with minimal force on the brace, just enough to keep it straight and spinning. The lead screw pulls the bit into the cut, and out spills handfuls of thin semicircles, leaving a nice cleanly bored hole.
Poplar, ash, etc. requires more torque and a small amount of force to assist the lead screw, but nothing like needing to put your weight into it. (relative to the diameter of the bit)