Quick question on braces and eggbeater drills

[Dustin Irby]

Can you use current auger and drill bits with the old braces and eggbeater drills or do you need to purchase specialized bits? Thanks for the help.

[Jim Koepke]

Can you use current auger and drill bits with the old braces and eggbeater drills or do you need to purchase specialized bits? Thanks for the help.

The eggbeater and a brace are two different things.

The eggbeater style drill has a chuck that is usually made to take common twist drills or round shank drills. Being that there is usually three gripping parts to the chuck, some of them will work fine with bits that have a 1/4" hex drive.

Braces are mostly made to take bits with a tapered square tang. Some braces are able to use round bits. It has been forty years ago, but if my memory is working, the Bell System used the Stanley 2101 brace that would take a twist drill bit. This was what was used back then to drill holes in walls to install telephone wires.

jim

[george wilson]

And,the eggbeater drill is only powerful enough to drill small holes.

[Michael Faurot]

Most braces have 2 jaw chucks that are designed to hold tapered shank bits. There's a few vintage braces that have 3 or 4 jaw type chucks, but they're not very common. If you go with a new brace, Lee Valley does sell a 3 jaw chuck brace (http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=32300&cat=1,180,42337).

What you can do though, to use modern round shank bits with a 2 jaw chuck brace, is find a chuck adapter. A search on ebay for "brace chuck adapter" should turn up something.

[Dustin Irby]

Thanks for the info. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't getting myself into trouble if I purchase a brace or eggbeater drill and then end up having trouble finding bits. I'm currently looking at a brace with the 3 jaws, so it should be pretty versatile.

[Dave Matson]

Old augers are probably more common than the braces that hold them. Just look on ebay or garage and estate sales.

Certain braces such as the PEXTO brand with samson chuck, Millers falls with Lion or Master chuck and yankee brand braces have jaws that contract in parallel and can use round shank bits OK. The square shanks just work better for higher torque applications.

[Mike Holbrook]

If you go to the link below and scroll around you will find information on: Barber Braces, Holdall Braces, Lion Braces and Parsons De Luxe braces. Make sure to follow the links to the various types of chucks as they determine what bits the brace will hold well. The braces I mention above are all designed to hold a variety of bit types.

http://oldtoolheaven.com/brace/FeaturedBraces.htm

My Yankee 1545 is a sort of cross between a breast and hand drill, classified as a hand drill. It was designed to do most of what a brace can and some things a brace can't, via its 5 ratcheting settings and two speeds. The chuck rests on a group of ball bearings that prevent pressure applied against the bit from doing damage to the gears. It has a 3 jaw chuck that holds most modern bits well. I was using it with hex shank bits and bit holders earlier today. The Millers Falls #97 is similar but a breast drill. My Yankee 1530AX and 1530 only have one speed but all 5 ratcheting settings in a compact 10.5 - 11" drill with a 3 jaw chuck that works well with round twist bits and hex bits. These drills are frequently auctioned on Ebay.

[John Coloccia]

http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/schedule/28season_video.html

Scroll down to "A Very Boring Program". Not directly related but sort of a neat trip through the history of boring tools.

[Joel Goodman]

I have two Stanley 923 braces and they hold both square shank (traditional) bits as well as round ones. The eggbeaters hold standard small twist bits fine. Sandy Moss can tell you which braces hold round bits of the ones he has for sale.