Well I am off to a good start on my new Hand Brace Project. As some of you know, I am a machinist by trade and every once and awhile, take on a project and build a tool from scratch. Over the years I have made presentation tools of hand planes, hand saws, and hand slitters. Now I have decided to take on the task of building a Hand Brace.

 

Like all my tools, I pick someone out that I think would like and deserve a special, custom made presentation tool and then give it to them. This one is going to a man at church who was once a pastor himself, but now does custom woodworking. He builds custom guitars and has been kind enough to give some to the people at my church. For recognition of that, he will get this hand brace.

 

I choose Spalted Beech for the body of the hand brace, along with the top handle. This will be reinforced with 1/4 polished stainless steel let into the wood. All hardware on all my tools is of stainless steel in order to preserve it and prevent rust. This one is no different. I also try to improve upon the original design and make it better. In this tools case I used a Jacobs Chuck because I like the smooth action and the grip. The top handle spins freely on bearings lubricated with graphite for ease of use. Other improvements will be a lead counter weight suspended at the bottom the hand brace to give the drill enough weight to sink a drill bit into wood without having to bear down as much on it. I also plan to add a torque multiplier to the brace that can thread onto the handle if drilling difficult wood, or with large diameter bits. To keep the brace balanced, I will have a counter balancer on the other side for ease of use.

 

I plan to put this in a nice, dovetailed case behind glass with red felt to highlight the white figured Spalted Beech wood, and mirror polished stainless steel. This will include a small sanding block on a stainless steel chain inside the case beside a block of Incense Cedar. This will be the wood I test drill the brace with. I use this combination so that years from now the owner can take the block of wood and lightly sand the cedar block so that the cedar smell can be reproduced, yet have the case contain the first hole ever drilled with the hand brace.

 

In the end I think this will be a distinctive, yet very functional hand brace for drilling holes. Will it ever be used for such an undertaken? Probably not but that is the challenge of presentation tools...make them gorgeous, but make them truly functional too!

One thing I want to do, but am not sure how to do for this drill, is change the top handle to polished granite instead of wood. I think this real rock would really make the brace into a class by itself and really compliment the spalted beech wood. The problem I am having though, is how do I drill a 4 to 5 inch diameter block of granite? I thought about using a length of cable hooked up to my bandsaw running in a continuous loop with sand and water applied to the cable to cut the granite, but ruled that out. Then I thought about making my own hole saw rigged to my drill press using sand and water to wear through the granite, but ruled that out. I do have a tile cutter (like a mini0table saw) that I can use, but cannot figure out how to use that to cut a circular block of rock.

 

Does anyone know of a way to cut a circular piece of polished granite, 4-5 inches in diameter with a 1/4 inch hole in the center. Does anyone know of something that can be rented to make the piece of rock? I'll entertain any ideas at this point.

Travis..

This comes to mind, even though I've never tried it.

It seems to me that you will need  some kind of carbide tipped drill to make the hole.  If it were my project, here's what I would do..

Get a 1/4" Carbide tipped drill that is made for drilling into concrete. If you have a scrap piece of Granite, make a holding jig for it and clamp the assembly to your drill press table.  Using a relatively high RPM and very light hand feed, try to drill the hole.  You might want a little water to flood the hole while drilling to prevent excess heat and drill damage.

Then, if this works, do you "keeper" piece.

Larry