Boring machines on eBay

[Branson]

This one is new today:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Antique-BARN-BEAM-DRILL-Auger-Hand-Boring-Machine-Primitive-Vintage-Tool-/290777245265?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43b3aca651

This one has been up for a while:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400320998694?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2648

[oldtools]

Very nice hand drill-press,
looks like the 1st one, the cranks turn the drill & feeds the drill? how do you control the feed?
2nd Drill-press looks like you flip the feed bar into the gears?

[Branson]

Very nice hand drill-press,
looks like the 1st one, the cranks turn the drill & feeds the drill? how do you control the feed?
2nd Drill-press looks like you flip the feed bar into the gears?

Not exactly a drill press.  These were used primarily to drill holes in building timber frame buildings -- post and beam construction.  The holes received the wooden pegs that held it all together.  Drill presses and beam drills are older than this tool (Diderot illustrated those in his 1750 encyclopedia.)

These are portable.  Drill one hole in a beam or post, pick it up and move it to the next place you need a hole.  Both those pictured have a geared bar for raising or lowering the drill apparatus, but these are not feed bars.  There's a catch on the top  wooden bar to hold the drill apparatus in the up position.  Feed is primarily controlled by the lead screw on the auger bit.

You place the contraption on the beam so that the bit is in the correct position for the hole to be bored.  Then you sit on the long area in the front, release the bit from the catch, and work the handles like a bicycle crank.  When the hole is done, you shift the gears so that they engage the "feed" bar and retract the drill.

The first one drills a hole at a fixed 90 degree angle.  The second can adjust to drill at angles (note the hemispherical tracks attached to the base, and the wing-nuts that hold the drill frame in place.

The first timber framer to use one of these instead of the traditional T-handle auger must have felt like he "done died and gone to heaven."

[john k]

Branson that is a good description.  I've been looking to acquire one of these for some time, but time, money and tool are never in the same place together.  There is a good set of photos of one in use in one of the *Foxfire* books.   The fella is using it to make a wooden turbine for a water mill.  Don't most of these take a different bit than a tapered square shank?

[Branson]

Those I have seen up close take a round shank bit, secured by a square head bolt.  So all the bits (and I doubt there were all *that* many sizes) had to have the same diameter shank.  I think mine is 1/2 inch.  Oh, also,  the adjustable angle model folds flat, making it more convenient to store and to load in the wagon.

[oldtools]

""Both those pictured have a geared bar for raising or lowering the drill apparatus, but these are not feed bars. ""

Thank you Mike, I was wondering how the geared bar worked..  now it makes sense to lift or lower the drill.
didn't looked like it could controll feed, would be too fast.

[Branson]

They really are fun to use, and faster than you expect.