What's this step-bit auger for?

[AreBeeBee]

Maybe there's an answer already on GJ, but as I can't even decide what to call this thing, it's hard to find. My guess is that these were used to drill large holes in tough wood. The narrow part is 1/2 inch, the wide is 7/8. The stubby length of the bit (6-1/4") suggests that it was made to be driven with a good deal of torquing force. No maker's mark on it.

Any ID?

(The background is the cover of the Lost Arts Press book on **** Proenneke, builder of an Alaskan cabin with mainly hand tools.)

 

[jbfsr]

Maybe to drill counter sunk holes. So head of bolt is recessed.

 

[readhead]

Counterbore bit. Clearance hole and counterbore in one pass.

 

[RTM]

Might also be a special doweling bit. Usually they are much closer to the actual size stated vs a normal auger bit. I.e. the half is much closer to 0.500 than a normal bit, and also shorter. Poking thru some older catalogs right now to see if I can find the truth.

 

[RTM]

Looks like jbsr hit it

The Russell Jennings Manufacturing Co. : Catalog No. 30 : Russell Jennings Manufacturing Co. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

52 p., illus., 22.9 cm, trade catalog

archive.org

 

[AreBeeBee]

That was quick! Thank you all. (Found the auger bit in the 75 cent bin at a local Restore.)

 

[Farmer J.]

Nice one. The book is a good read, too.

 

[AreBeeBee]

Nice one. The book is a good read, too.

Everyone who's been a Boy Scout, as well as any tool people, will find the book on **** P to be thoroughly engaging. What that guy did is what any of us would wish to do. Making many things from not a lot of supplies and it was (almost) all of it handcrafted with basic tools. Just amazing.

 

[Modern Garage]

About once a year during a pledge drive one of the nearby public TV stations broadcasts the video version of **** Proenneke's story. It consists mostly of his own home movies of himself building and living on his Alaska homestead. Very fascinating.

I didn't notice if he used an auger bit like this one. (Just trying to pretend I'm not contributing to thread drift...)

Joe

 

[AreBeeBee]

About once a year during a pledge drive one of the nearby public TV stations broadcasts the video version of **** Proenneke's story. It consists mostly of his own home movies of himself building and living on his Alaska homestead. Very fascinating.

I didn't notice if he used an auger bit like this one. (Just trying to pretend I'm not contributing to thread drift...)

Joe

He had auger bits of several sizes and a Stanley brace. When he tried to use one of them as an ice auger, he found it kept hanging up in the ice as lead screw tended to freeze in. Heating the auger on the stove and bringing a teakettle of hot water helped a little, but not enough. So continuing to experiment, he finally made it into an ice auger by successively filing away the lead screw and then the spurs, leaving just the sharp cutting edge on the helix. That worked.

I'm thinking that the counterbore, being a special order item, probably meant there weren't a great many of them made, hence their unfamiliarity now. And the buyers were likely shops or factories who would use these on production lines of many similar items, rather than individual carpenters and woodworkers working on projects.