Posted 7 years ago
Irishcolle…
(137 items)
I would really like to identify this item. It is 10 inches long. The hole in one end goes all the way through being .75 of an inch on the outside and "squarish" in shape and .5 of an inch on the inside and round. The other end comes to a point. There is a worn piece of tin loosely wrapped around the centre. It is quite heavy the round bar being over 1 inch thick.
At different times I thought it might be part of a lathe or part of a beam drill but maybe it is too heavy to be either. Any help welcome.
Did you happen to find this on a farm?
Don't know where it came from originally, got it from another collector.
Looks like a rudimentary drill brace. There would have been a "pad", with a small hole in it, to place onto the pointed end allowing one to press down on the point while rotating the brace. Very old drill bits, before the adjustable chuck was invented, used to be held in square, tapered, wood plugs allowing any size bit to fit in the same non-adjustable hole in a brace.
It makes sense UncleRon, thank you. Any idea why it was made so heavy?
No purpose I can think of. It may simply have been a "field expedient" piece made out of what was on hand.