here is some free and unsolicited advice. agree/disagree?
situations you will want a cordless drill:
- you are working where there is not guaranteed convenient electricity available
- you need to be extremely mobile and a cord would be hazardous or very inconvenient
- wet environments? idk
examples: rough construction, outdoors, drywall racing
benefits of a corded drill:
- no batteries to charge
- no batteries that can be stolen
- no batteries you can lose or break
- no need to plan around charging batteries
- no batteries which allow the manufacturer to twist your arm into buying a new device when the old one works just fine; less susceptible to planned obsolescence
- no batteries to weigh the tool down: lighter and more comfortable to use the tool and better balance
- tool is smaller and easier to use in cramped situations
- don’t need a case, charger, extra batteries or other junk
- one less thing to go wrong; more repairable if it does
- more powerful
you are in a comm called “DIY” = you are probably always working near a power outlet and not going very far. consider a corded drill instead of mindlessly going cordless.
Make sure you get a decent extension cord. I used heatshink tubing to add an extra 6ft to my cord, that makes it long enough for many applications. Sometimes I tie on an extra one.
I legit have 1 of each. For the curious, here is a picture of 4 different manual drills. We are talking about the first (brace) and third (“egg beater” actually I think just called a hand drill):
I really liked the brace until the ratchet mechanism on the chuck failed. I think a spring fell out or something; I couldn’t manage to fix it after a bit of online research. I might get another one. It’s nice and quiet which is good because nobody likes the noise of a drill. Originally I bought it because I was working nights and wanted to work on projects on my days off. But it turns out people don’t love it when you are using power tools at 3am on a tuesday. But I found it gives great control and feel for what you are doing. It doesn’t take as much effort as you would think. You can use your body and gravity to help like this
But it’s slower or course. Hardwood can be a chore. The holes it makes are beautiful and perfect compared to what I can make with my corded drill. You can get closer to press quality. I never find smaller widths. There are no 1/8" auger bits, which is the most usual size I use for predrilling. I think they’d be too fragile.
The crank drill I haven’t used much as I took it apart to service it and forgot to put it back together… Maybe I should get to that.
The main problem for me is that the manual drills are not forgiving of cheap bits. You really have to get nice, new auger bits. I got some “vintage” ones but the tips were mostly busted up and that’s not repairable. You can get the tool itself for $20-50 used but you’re gonna need to spend well upwards of $100 on just a few bits.
I haven’t found a non-powered way to drive the screws comfortably. I’ve screwed up my hands in various ways with screwdrivers. I’d like to get something a bit more ergonomic.
But you missed the one kind of manual drill that I would recommend to anyone. Even if you are too casual to justify owning any other kind of drill. A set of auger gimlets. This is what modern ones look like:
If you just need to pre drill a couple holes, sometimes it’s less work to just do it by hand than go get the power drill. Sometimes they are helpful when going into a weird material like lathe and plaster. They don’t do well with hardwood mind. Though you can force them by putting a screwdriver or something through the eyehole for more torque.
Oh, I did forget about gimlets. I should get me some of those.
I don’t have anything useful to add, I just want to share my own misadventures with the hand brace. I’d found a brace at a local consignment store. Good working order, no rust, I think I paid $5 for it. But I’ve never been able to find any of the bits that those chucks take. I’ve heard of braces made with a chuck that could take modern octagonal bits, but the one I’ve got needs the traditional square-shanked bit. I ended up buying modern auger bits at the hardware store, and ultimately I was able to drill a 3/4” hole through a 4x4, so it can be made to work. But it was a pain.
Last year I found a complete set of vintage bits online for $100. 13 bits, from 1/4” to 1”. But for me a hundred bucks is a lot to spend on what are ultimately specialty drill bits. Especially when I know I could go to the hardware store and buy a cheap cordless drill, a set of general purpose bits, and also auger bits for probably under $75. For me the hand brace is an aesthetic choice, not a practical one. I like that there’s no noise, I like that it doesn’t need power, I like that there’s no plastic components. But I don’t need it. I don’t need to worry about the noise, I’ve never been without electric power a day in my life, it’s a largely impractical aesthetic choice.
So I bought the bits, because what’s the point in being practical? And they came unsharpened. I need a safe-edged file to sharpen them with, but I don’t have a bench grinder, and I’ve been too lazy to borrow my old man’s. Also, I’m definitely worried I’ll ruin my bits by filing them wrong.
Tangentially, Peter Follansbee has a good blog post about some historical wooden hand braces, I wanna say from Dutch colonists from the late 17th century. If I can dig it up I’ll post a link.
https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/wooden-brace/