Greetings,
I have spent more time than seems possible on trying to sort this out but… what bits to get for a brace? I know that ideally you find some ancient and still sharp treasures in a garage sale for 2$ but that has not been the case. I ordered a set of augers from Amazon that turned out to be made from ” the finest Chinesium” as Stumpy once said and after a quick look at the burrs and rounded edges and general craptastic condition of the set I used the return button.
I guess my question is what type of shank should i be looking for on the augers? I was looking at some wood owl augers but they all had short hex shanks on them… is there a source for new brace shank augers I am unable to locate??
Replies
You might find the things on this page of Deiter Schmidt's tool emporium useful as an information resource.
You can get adapters to allow both the large and small hex-ended augers to be used in the chucks of hand braces. But there are also plenty of augers sold (in Europe at least) that have the traditional fitting for B&B chucks.
Those Wood Owl bits have a good reputation, although I don't have any myself. I believe Derek Cohen (currently hanging about this forum somewhere) may have some and can surely give good advice about them if so.
Lataxe
First question is, what kind of brace do you have? Many braces can only accept square tapered shank bits. Pretty much all of those are antiques. A lot if those are fantastic bits, but you would need to be prepared to sharpen them.
Many of the finest vintage braces could take both square tapered shank, round, or hex shank bits. Those WoodOwls would work great in those.
It really depends on your brace.
Wood Owl does sell an adapter for their bits. I can't speak to its effectiveness.
You can sometimes find Bridge City tool bits on eBay but they aren't cheap by any means.
Highland Woodworking sells Fisch(an Austrian Company) classic style Auger Bits. I have no personal experience with Fisch bits but they seem to have a good reputation.
Sorry, forgot the DS link:
https://www.fine-tools.com/bohr1.html
Lataxe
You really need to get a good look at the spurs on the vintage bits and I have been disappointed more than impressed. I did get a Fisch from highland and it works well so I may start to replace any that don't pull well into the wood. A proper file is a must and I got the one from Highland for $19 I think.
Tools for Working Wood sells a Jennings Pattern Auger Bit with the traditional tapered square shank. I have a couple of them. For me they work much better than the antique types I've had before. I also like the Wood Owl bits but have used them only in a power drill since I don't yet have an adapter for the brace. https://toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/MS-JB.XX
I bought a set of Irwin augers off EBay.
Thanks for the answers guys... I ended up ordering a 3/4 fisch from highland. Will see how it goes on the bench top I am practicing on right now ( I am guessing it will cut HD 2x6 pine fairly easy but...). I think the thing I seemed to be missing was the phrase " brace shank" in my googling lol.
So... ordered a Fisch bit from highland after returning the auger set to amazon. Guess which is which?
Nice clean cutter on the left. I looked at the site for Jennings bits and they are sold out for all but two sizes.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled