Hand powered drilling tools and machines
The hand drills have a couple of non-obvious advantages over a normal electric drill.<p>First, since they&#x27;re usually slower, it&#x27;s harder to really screw up and drill a blind hole too deep. As an added bonus, if you mark your depth with tape, it&#x27;s a lot harder to accidentally push the tape up the bit, and subsequently drill too deep.<p>Second, I find it much easier to drill a hole perpendicular to the surface I&#x27;m drilling in because the handle is in line with the axis of the hole. I find it much harder to do that reliably with an electric drill.<p>Third, if you pull off the side handle (chef&#x27;s cap), you can drill quite close to a wall (but not a corner). The handle isn&#x27;t appreciably larger in diameter than the chuck, so you can drill straight in much closer (6-12mm) than you can with most electric drills.<p>Fourth, the old ones are beautifully made, and will last forever[0].<p>Those are on top of the obvious advantage that they need neither a cord nor batteries.<p>The downsides:<p>It&#x27;s harder to get the bit back out; you can&#x27;t just gun it and pull back like you can with an electric drill. Also, you can&#x27;t crank in reverse. That usually just loosens the chuck.<p>You can&#x27;t really maintain the speed you need to get a clean hole with a brad-point bit. Or maybe that just comes with practice? I haven&#x27;t managed it yet.<p>The single speed ones are pretty well done for by the time you hit a 1&#x2F;4&quot;&#x2F;6mm bit, especially with a smaller drill.<p>I have a Miller&#x27;s Falls #5, and a Goodell-Pratt 5 1&#x2F;2 [1]. The Goodell-Pratt has a low gear that really ups the capacity to drill larger diameter holes in hardwood.<p>The Miller&#x27;s Falls #5 has a double pinion, which I prefer to the single pinion on the Goodell-Pratt. The gearbox on the Goodell-Pratt is also slightly fussy, but it does have a ball bearing thrust bearing.<p>[0] Can&#x27;t resist, here&#x27;s one of mine: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.instagram.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;BSkaD6iA1BP&#x2F;?taken-by=teaandsawdust" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.instagram.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;BSkaD6iA1BP&#x2F;?taken-by=teaandsawd...</a>
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