Hi guys.
So, in reassembling my handtool kit, I finally acquired a brace. An old Stanley Defiance model.
The bits that came with it -- a lot of them -- were, unfortunately, in pretty bad shape -- sharpened improperly, and many with damaged snails or nearly filed off spurs, etc. etc.
A few are in usable shape, along with a counter sink and some small spoon and gimlet style bits, though, so I feel I got my money's worth.
Finding good auger bits, in good condition, has always been a struggle. So, in the meantime, and because having metric sizes is useful anyway, I bought some modern hex-shanked auger bits.
And... they seem to work just fine in my brace.
I know there's an adapter that I see for braces, which takes modern hex-shank bits, but... Do you really need it? They seem to seat in the chuck just fine.
Am I unknowingly doing any kind of harm to the chuck? I can't imagine so, as they're pretty solid...
The only real usecase I can imagine is to take those small screwdriver heads, which would be nice... as they're much to short to just stick in the chuck.