A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BRACE, OR BITSTOCK
The Chinese are credited with inventing the double crank brace in about 100 A.D. Europeans did not have ready access to this useful tool until the 15th century. The wooden bitstock, with its small button-like top, remained virtually unchanged for the next 300 years. These early braces were made complete with fixed-bit in place. If you customarily drilled 3 different sized holes in the line of chairs you made – you would own 3 separate bitstocks. A 17th century craftsman, who did a lot of hole drilling, apparently grew tired of carrying a dozen bulky braces to his place of employment and invented removable bit pods (pads). These first interchangeable bit pads were held in the drill brace only by the pressure of the tool upon the workpiece. Sometime later, thumbscrews were added to the crude chucks and by the early 1800’s fancy button-operated lever-release mechanisms began to appear. Exact dating of unmarked braces is difficult because all three forms of wooden bitstocks mentioned above, along with several metal types, existed side by side for over a century. The unbraced, beechwood-framed bitstocks of Europe were gradually refined to include brass reinforcement plates on their fragile elbows, as seen on the Sheffield brace mounted on the right. In 1850 Mr. William Marples, of Sheffield, England, developed the “ultimate” brace. It had a cast brass frame with exotic hardwood infill. The “ultimatum” as it was called, could be purchased in basic beech, finer rosewood, or exotic ebony. A few were made with animal horn filling. About the same time that Marples was introducing his new tool in Great Britain, several different all metal braces were being developed in the United States of America. These braces incorporated a shell-type chuck which was designed to accommodate a wider ranger of bit sizes than had previously been used. By the turn-of-century the new American pattern had captured the entire world market. It featured ball bearing construction, alligator jaws, a ratcheting drive shaft and sold for $1.50 in the year 1896.
|
