This tool recently came to me for free, courtesy of our younger daughter’s boyfriend, along with a bucket of other goodies I haven’t got into yet. I decided to start with this one.
For thousands of years, if you needed to drill a hole in something, this was basically what you would use. This particular brace has a reversible ratcheting feature that allows for work in tight spaces like between floor joists and such.
I hope I can remember how it goes back together.
There really isn’t very much to this tool — This is as far as I broke it down. The wood handle and knob didn’t have any obvious ways to remove them and I didn’t want to break anything in the attempt. Likewise with the ratcheting mechanism; it was already operating smoothly so I just gave it a good external cleaning and flushed it out with about half a can of penetrating oil.
This little project is more of a rescue that a restoration. All I did was rub it down with sandpaper plus medium and fine Scotchbrite and gave it a coat of oil. The wood parts were cleaned up with mineral spirits and given several coats of boiled linseed oil. And we’re done.
The whole thing took maybe 45 minutes.
This is a good quality brace. I looked for any manufacturer’s marking and this “L.S.” is the only thing on it. It may the the maker, or it could possibly be a prior owner’s initials. These were his grandfather’s tools and his last name began with an S so that’s maybe it. A quick search for “L.S. + tools” and similar terms turns up nothing. It seems a little unusual to not have any identification markings..
This is a tool of mysterious origin.
So, now I have this good functional brace, but I had no bits to fit it. Over to Ebay I go, and I found this set for ten bucks. They weren’t very rusty, so I hoped that was an indication that they had been reasonably well taken care of.
They even came in a handy storage box. Nice. I’ll have a beer to celebrate.
“The Irwin Bit”
The auger bits did have some identification on them — They were made by Irwin Tools, founded in 1885 by Charles Irwin, an Ohio pharmacist. An interesting career change, to say the least.
Irwin is still around to this day, producing a wide variety of hand tools. And yes, they still make these auger bits too.
Their website doesn’t boast that their products are American-made, so I suspect their production has long ago been outsourced to Asia. Sigh.
Getting them good and sharp.
These were in good condition, but very dull — You could not drill a hole with any of them. Out comes the file. I spent about five minutes on each bit, and they all cut nice holes now.
This auger set contains size 11 through 15. The numbering system for these is based on sixteenths of an inch — 11 = 11/16”, 12 = 3/4”, 13=13/16”, and so on.
I nearly destroyed the wood box these came in. I accidentally knocked it off the bench and splintered it up pretty badly. Dammit. I fixed it as best I could. You can see where it broke on the back panel.
De-rusted and sharpened.
The obligatory test hole.
With sharp bits, this is a joy to use. Little effort is needed — The bit does almost all the work and it leaves a good clean edge. This test hole through a piece of 2X6 only took a few seconds to drill. Honestly, if I need to drill a hole between 1/2” and 1” (Because those are the bit sizes I currently have), this is the tool I’ll reach for. It’s quicker and easier than pulling out the electric drill. Sometimes the old ways are better.
This one’s going back to its old home.
Correction. I said this is the first project from that batch of freebies. It’s actually the second. I restored a circa 1950’s Fulton hand plane that was in the bucket first, and I’m giving it back to our daughter’s boyfriend. He doesn’t yet know that though. At last count, I had something like 17 hand planes. That’s about 12 or 13 more than I need.
Stay safe, everyone!