I’ve had a Millers Falls No. 32 I got off ebay for a few months now and I love it. But I had some issues recently driving Philips head screws and the driver would sometimes slip out of the slots of the screws. At first I thought the Philips shaft was bent, but it turns out the chuck on the brace has some runout. I don’t know if it’s in the jaw or some other part of the chuck. If I put the brace into ratcheting mode and just spin it with a regular size bit it measures about a quarter inch of travel at the tip of the bit.
I haven’t had to do any “precision” drilling – and quite honestly I don’t have the skillset yet to really do precision hand drilling – so I don’t know if this is an issue that will eventually rear its ugly head or not. I’d like to think that when I drill into wood any runout would be offset by the brace itself just wandering slightly in my hands – because I’m certainly not capable of keeping the brace locked into position below a quarter inch of travel!
So how much runout is too much on a brace? And if I’ve got too much, is it any easy fix or do I eventually shop for another brace (and potentially run into the same problem….)
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