Drilling by Hand

[J_SAMa]

I've always drilled with my trusty Bosch drill, but the purist in me just makes me want to try drilling with a brace, at least just try it.
Of course auger bits would be used with a brace, and the best place to look for auger bits is the Bay (hammer). What I'm worried about is the de-rusting of bits... I've done planes and chisels and they're easy, but I imagine its hard to take sandpaper to a drill bit. Don't want to use electrolysis, not worth it for just a few bits.
Now, do auger bits, or any other bits for that matter need to be de-rusted on anywhere else other than the very tip at all? It's only the tip that does the cutting and the rest of the drill bit pretty much only serves to extract the shavings.
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What would you use to drill a flat-bottomed hole with a brace? Forstner's obviously not an option. Spade bits?

Sam

 

[Jacob]

Just sharpen and go!

 

[MMUK]

the best place to look for auger bits is the Bay

:shock:

You've led a sheltered life then.....

 

[DuncanA]

Here's a good guide for cleaning brace bits: http://www.cornishworkshop.co.uk/bracecleaning.html
I'm sure some of the steps are purely for appearances sake, I'm sure as long as the bits are sharp and true they will do the job.

As for flat bottomed holes you can get forstner bits for braces though they rarely seem to turn up on ebay (though judging by MMUK's comment I may be looking in the wrong place! :lol: )

 

[MMUK]

I wouldn't recommend brace forstner bits. They don't have a central guide screw but rely on the rim for location. A bit like using a hole saw without the pilot drill.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Dieter Schmidt have some new old stock German made brace augur bits at sensible prices. I have some and they are OK.

There are many ways in which second hand bits can have been abused so as to give disappointing results. Broken spurs, damage to the lead screw, asymmetrically filed, filed so that they don't cut at all. But at least they can be had cheaply enough to be selective about which are worth filing back to useable. Schmidt also stock augur bit files which are worth having.

 

[Bod]

Car-boot. Just make sure before you buy they are good enough to work, probably still shiny, wire-wheel on a bench grinder, best rust remover for brace-bits.
Get a small file to sharpen with.

Bod

 

[KevM]

What would you use to drill a flat-bottomed hole with a brace? Forstner's obviously not an option. Spade bits? Sam

I've used Forstner bits successfully in a brace, after starting the hole with an auger, and also with a couple of smaller Forstners that have a decent centre point. If you're buying new you might want to look for bits with hex shanks that you can tighten the chuck of the brace onto - tightening the chuck of a brace onto a round shank has never worked satisfactorily for me; this also has the benefit of having bits you can use either in your brace or a regular drill.

 

[J_SAMa]

the best place to look for auger bits is the Bay

:shock:

You've led a sheltered life then.....

Well the city I live in isn't exactly hot on old handtools (nor are other cities in the province, Kees can probably say the same)... EBay may really be my only option.

 

[J_SAMa]

What would you use to drill a flat-bottomed hole with a brace? Forstner's obviously not an option. Spade bits? Sam

I've used Forstner bits successfully in a brace, after starting the hole with an auger, and also with a couple of smaller Forstners that have a decent centre point. If you're buying new you might want to look for bits with hex shanks that you can tighten the chuck of the brace onto - tightening the chuck of a brace onto a round shank has never worked satisfactorily for me; this also has the benefit of having bits you can use either in your brace or a regular drill.

Planning on using square bits. Havne't come across any old augers with hex shanks yet...

 

[Cheshirechappie]

Old sets of brace augers in bit rolls crop up quite frequently on Ebay. That would be a good starting point, and gives you something to store them in, too. Some sizes are more common than others - finding a 15/16" Jennings pattern auger might be tricky, for example - but then, you don't often need one. In my experience, you can tell how clean bits are in the Ebay photos quite easily. Just avoid the rusty ones. The shinier ones rarely need much by way of cleaning, though some do need sharpening.

The old way of drilling flat-bottomed holes (or nearly flat bottomed, anyway) was to use a centre bit. They crop up frequently on Ebay, too.

One potential downside to buying old brace bits is that you'll be limited to Imperial sizes. Metric ones rarely crop up.

 

[Corneel]

Yeah, The Netherlands aren't anything like the UK. I have given up on markets, too much rubish and tools are rare. My main feeding ground is marktplaats.nl. It is hardly a secret anymore, but drillbits and braces are still available at decent prices. Nobody really wants them I guess.