I’ve been drooling over some of these old Bit & Brace drills for a while now and there’s several of them available on eBay but they’re out of my funding range the moment. So I was thinking, why not try to make one?
The plan will be to make one that has a more modern chuck that can use modern bits and accept a wider range of things like a modern cordless drill can. So here’s a bunch of reference pics I’ve collected, at some point in the future I’ll revisit this post and we’ll see what happens, in the meantime I’m going to add pics and gather more information and try to formulate a plan on how to do this on my own without any input from outside sources.
Up first is an 1850 Henry Brown / James Bee Sheffield Bit Brace. Over 150 years old and looking snazzy as ever.
Next is a Josh Cooper Birmingham Sheffield Brass Plated Bit Brace with a matched chisel that comes with it.
And next we have a J Frost Norwich Hardwood Bit Brace made of rosewood from England.
This one is just labeled Clearwater
And finally I had to save the best for last… and oh yes, this is by far the best when it comes to these Bit Brace… the William Marples Ultimatum series. If I read the descriptions correctly, one is Brass and Ivory and the other is Brass and Ebony. There are others but these two just jumped out at me as I as browsing. Again, I will add more pics as I have time. These are absolutely stunning examples of craftsmanship that’s above and beyond. There was a price listed with the Ivory one of $10,000.00. The last is one made of Brass and Beech, still stunning nonetheless.
So there’s what I’ve got to go on so far, pretty simple design, the hardest part is coming up with a chuck and a way to securely mount it to the wood.
As you can see in all of these examples, there’s a square chuck that holds things in place on these which is pretty simple and secure but not exactly universal by today’s standard. We need something that looks this good and can use modern bits with little or no problem at all.
For now I will just mull this over in me melon and come back to it from time to time, right now I have to jump back in the sack as I’ve got a night shift at the shop that’s going to toss me into a loop for the rest of the week.
But wait, there’s more !!! It’s now the middle of November 2022 and I haven’t started on this project yet but I plan on it now that I have a better grasp of things and know what to do… Here’s some more inspirational pics from Jim Bode Tools
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