Brace & Bit | Paul Sellers

you know sometimes i wrestle with technology because you know i use a drill driver it's a wonderful tool but sometimes i worry because we just use those all the time when in fact there is proven technology that still is viable for us today as woodworkers as it was a hundred years ago 70 years ago 50 years ago i bought my first brace and bit when i was 15 15 and a half 16 years old and i've been using it ever since because it's such a practical tool and it's a human speed that's the important thing sometimes you drive a drill driver you're working on a veneered surface you're drilling a hole through it bump something triggered the mechanism faster than you wanted to go and all of a sudden you've ripped into that surface so with a ham brace you very very rarely would ever ever do such a thing i'm gonna take the the bitter i picked the biggest bit because you'll see the most because of its size but these go up in 1 16 increments from quarter of an inch all the way up to one inch so i've got the variance that i need for most of my work woodworking we don't usually work to the same tolerances say an engineer might want to work two thousandths of an inch we don't usually do that so a one inch bit and this is my brace this is very standard it's got a ratchet on it so i can go forward and reverse i'm taking it apart so that you can see what happens with this bit when i pull this jaw out of the shell we call this the shell you can call it a chuck if you want to when we take the the end of the bit and place it inside this crocodile jaw and we squeeze this together which is what happens inside the chuck it locks the four-sided tang into the two v grooves on either side and it's very successful in that union between those two components it really locks it nicely let's put this back together the best way to put this back together slide it into that channel take the shell place it over and slide it up until the threads engage and then just turn it when we put this into the the shell itself when we're locking this in place just house it in and then keep turning this and it will self-center inside the shell and now those v's are locked on either side of that tang and we've got the perfect union it's now ready for boring the holes so what do we need to know about the other moving parts this is the ratchet mechanism if i turn this to here i can go in one direction why do we need a ratchet because sometimes we're inside a cabinet inside a cupboard underneath some stairs in between jaws joists and we want to take this so we come up against a hard wall we can rotate this this way we get so far we find we've got to reverse it we turn this threaded this knurled part here and we can back the thread out like this sometimes we might just want it locked in the permanent no no ratchet position that's what we've got there now so it's great this rotates it's wonderful if it doesn't rotate it causes blisters on your hand this pad can go in your belly like this and you can press that way or you can use the hand pad and just turn it this way depending on whether you're whoops left-handed or right-handed so let's see this beast in action i'm going to put this in the vise this way just so you can see what's happening it's not typical normally i would put this in the vice this way take the brace press my belly in against the pad and then start rotating this way that means that i can move the the brace with my body weight but also we shouldn't forget right on the very tip of this brace we've got this snail here we call it the snail and it's got a threaded conical shape that actually works to pull itself into the wood those threads are 1 16 apart for every rotation this brace goes into the wood 1 16 and that includes when we actually start cutting the wood for the hole so let me show you this way put it in the vise this way so you can see this may not be typical but it's not all that unusual either because sometimes when we're working on a project we can't move the project and we have to bore this way so this goes on to the whole start here watch when i turn this so i'm going to count one two three four five six seven so i'm just starting to cut the rim of the hole so if i do a full rotation now and then back this out i've got a knife wall a circular knife wall cut by the the two outside edges on the bit i've got these half moon shapes here they cut that rim so these are filed and honed and sharpened so this pulls it into the uh into the hole these cut the rim of the hole and then right on the inside when this is engaging to the surface of the wood this raker here and this raker they pull in they are cutting the surface of the wood now with the spurs on each side removing uh defining the hole so i go through here like this and then i feel on the underside until the point comes through back out and there i've got a nice hole without any tear out on the edge of the hole flip over put it into the vise this way and then this lines it up tighten this up this lines it up perfectly with the opposite side what a what a remarkable tool it is still very usable very functional and there i've got no tear out on this side of the hole and i've got no tear out on this side of the hole it's a very neat tool so we learn how to sharpen the bits you can keep sharpening them for the rest of their life which will be 50 70 80 years if you take care of them okay let's take this out so we've got this full range of bits we've got all the sizes we need there are times when would i choose to use a drill driver as opposed to the bracing bit i would say usually i use a drill driver the electric battery driven drill driver anything any size from zero on up to quarter of an inch maybe three eighths of an inch after that i would probably use the bits because i feel like i have total control this is an adapter this is a wonderful piece of kit you buy the adapter and you can house into that you can house into that a countersink bit you can count put a a um a drill a bit driver for driving the screws this is unusual this is a slot head um driver bit that will go directly into the shell there so that's a great tool and then this one this is not meant for this tool at all this is the sleeve comes over here so if i want to drive a screw like this one i can put the bit in here the screw in there and then slide this up wherever i'm going to position that screw just keep turning like this now i'm going to turn this so you can see again let me pull that off i'm not very square but it won't matter for this demonstration there so slide that down and just keep going until it seats there it's seated flush so that's all that one does so this is adapting modern technology to work with vintage technology if you like so that's what i would do with that what about one or two of the other bits i've got some shell bits here these are shell bits and these fit directly into the into the brace so this square tang with the taper goes on like that i love this piece of equipment because watch this i can go in here and that starts my hole and i can just go all the way through in ten turns i will be through this three quarter inch piece of wood but one of the nice things about it this was a chairmaker's bit really you can then alter the angle so if you've got spindles going in your chair you've got rails going across and they've got angles to them you can go through just like this and this is the simplest of all the bits i think this is forged by a blacksmith and we keep going i need a little bit more pump here there we go so i've got the the whole board let me just push this through it's come through on the opposite side it's a very nice piece of kit nice if you're a chair maker still just as functional so here you have the brace the bits the variations of bits that are just as functional today to enhance your woodworking and i don't think they should ever be abandoned and the reason i'm giving you this demonstration is so that you'll get a hold of this and it will be perpetuated ad infinitum until the next generation the next generation because they are they're perfectly functional they work really well [Music] you

Channel: Paul Sellers

Views: 138,509

Keywords: hand tools, paul sellers, woodworking, DIY, workshop, joiner, carpenter, craftsman, crafts, furniture, joinery, brace & bit, tools

Id: d5yDXBoAdAk

Length: 10min 24sec (624 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 14 2019