egg beater drills

Re: egg beater drills

William Duffield, on the Cohansey

>Whether the egg beater will accept modern twist drill bits and hex drive heads or not depends on only one thing: whether it has a three jaw chuck (yes) or a two jaw chuck (no). The two jaw chucks, which are common in braces but seem to be much less common in egg beaters, are designed to accept bits with four sided, tapered ends.

Regarding utility, it sure is nice to have one around for when your battery goes flat on the cordless drill. In some cases, they will get you into a cramped spot that the electric drill won't fit. It weighs a lot less and takes up a lot less space in your toolbox if you have to haul it a distance from the bench. A lot of models come with a hollow handle, in which you can store several drill bits and other heads, saving even more space in your toolbox.

I find that I break a lot fewer very small drill bits when drilling holes with an egg beater than with a 14.4 volt cordless drill or with a corded drill. For larger bits, and for driving screws, the additional power and speed of the electric drill certainly has its advantages.

When you go shopping, look for one with ball bearings on both ends of the the drive shaft. They last longer, run smoother, and take less effort to turn. Also, make sure the side handle, which is usually detachable, has not been lost. Some are two speed, which is also an advantage. Some have a ratcheting drive, which is also an advantage in tight spots.

Re: egg beater drills

Jack Guzman from Maine

>I have a rack full of eggbeater drills all with a bit chucked into them.They're cheap and plentiful on the used tool market.Some work better than others but I find them all useful.For carpentry purposes they're too slow but when doing handcrafting or cabinet making,speed is not an issue,accuracy (especially depth)is,and the hand drills excel at that.Also,when working with hardwoods,predrilling for screws is almost always necessary,so I keep the common size bits for the different screw sizes I use ready in my drills.---Jack

also...

Jack Guzman from Maine

>To answer the rest of your question,all the eggbeater style drills I've seen take common round shaft drill bits.The push style drills are the ones with odd chucks.You can't go wrong with almost any millers falls drill.The only one I have that isn't made by them is a Yankee.---Jack

Re: egg beater drills

Jerry Anderson

>I've aquired a fair number of "egg beater" drills, Millers falls and Stanley, and if I had to give them all away except one, I'd keep the Millers Fall #5. If fact, SWMBO goes for a #5 as her first choice, much prefering it to any cordless drill. A good second choice would be a #2, or a Stanley 100. ( but Millers Falls are much prettier ;-)

Re: egg beater drills

Jim in Burlington Ontario

>I have one of the LV ones that comes from Germany bought it off a widow for 5 bucks. Couldn't be happier with it. Where it get's alot of use is on smaller drill bits that tend to snap when using a cordless drill.

Re: egg beater drills

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>I pick them up cheap at garage sales of auctions and like them. I use them more than my cordless drill now, as I never seem to have the battery charged on my drill. Especially for the small jobs like putting inserts into a wall for hanging pictures, or drill a few holes to hang doors, it is just a lot more fun to grab a hand drill and go to work. You'll need a small, medium, and large. The small one is perhaps the most useful.

Re: egg beater drills

Victor Parisian

>I use mine anytime I compute that getting the electric monster (1/2 inch drive) out, finding and untangling the heavy extension cord etc. will take longer than drilling a couple of holes by hand. I use it mostly for hanging curtains, mounting pictures on the wall etc. I get a bit of satisfaction in saying I did it on the cheap and I can justify to SWMBO another tool purchase.

An aside here; What do you suppose a decent well made hand drill would sell for today at Home Depot or Lowes?

Victor, who has almost finished wiring the new shop (two ceiling outlets to go). Insulation and drywall are next.

A contrary but expanded view

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>1. I find egg beater drills frustrating for sizes larger than about 3/16", because, with the exception of my North Bros. Yankee, which has a locking shaft, I can never get the chuck tight enough to keep the drill bit from twisting in the chuck. For sizes there and smaller, though, they're quite useful.

2. Even more useful for relatively shallow (1") small diameter holes in wood, such as you might make for installing hardware, is the push drill. Stanley's is best, because you can still get drill bits for it, though less easily than two years ago; the Goodell Pratt (also some Craftsman and Dunlap) cruciform bit is very hard to find, at least here on the Left Coast. This is so quick in its action that it's hard to believe; I personally consider it one of the finest engineered devices ever created. You might think I like it from the above...

3. For holes 1/4" and up, nothing cholesterol-powered beats a brace. I'm told it's possible to get 3/16" auger bits, but I've never seen one; you can without much difficulty find twist bits at garage sales to bridge the 3/16" to 1/4" sizes, and twisting in the chuck's not an issue with braces because the tapered square holds firmly.

Re: egg beater drills

Bill Lowrance in Geneva

>I also like eggbeaters' quiet usefulness and controllability with small twist-drills, and like the "feel," especially when drilling/probing through inconsistent woods, and the ease of working in tight corners. I've had a small Stanley and a Millers Falls since I was a kid. But the gear-play has always been loose and the spindles and chucks are of casual precision. Does anybody now make a really fine, precise eggbeater?

Love mine

Steve Kubien

>Hi Sanford,

I love my egg-beaters. Like Jim, I've got the one from LV (made in Germany), a Stanley (it's ok) and MF #5. The MF is my favourite and I use it all the time. Heck, once when the battery died on my 14.4v and I didn't have a corded drill, I used the LV one to drill holes for Tapcons in the block wall of my shop. It didn't take much longer either.

As for 'measure twice, cut once"...I think Norm wrote a book with that title (someone did, anyway). The title of my eventual book will be, "When Measuring Twice Is Not Enough, A Goomba's Guide To Wood Butchery."

Steve Kubien

Ajax, Ontario

Re: egg beater drills

Joe Rogers

>Based on the quality of the POS Stanley I bought in the early 1970's ....No!

I would look for some mint anteek units.JR

More on North Bros. Yankee eggbeaters

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>The North Bros. Yankee eggbeater drills use a ratcheting arrangement similar to the Yankee screwdrivers, but with more complexity - you can get right and left ratchet and plain (no ratcheting, just like any old eggbeater), and also locked, like the screwdrivers - which is quite useful in a drill, as you can tighten up the bit in the chuck better than with any other eggbeater drill of my experience - but wait! There's more! My favorite feature, for its gizmocity and its occasional usefulness, is the "double r.h." feature, which causes the drill to turn right (the normal direction), no matter which way you turn the crank. This can be quite handy in tight spots, as you wiggle the handle back and forth and the drill advances.

I just had a thought: some brand new cook, trolling the web for information on basic cooking tools, is going to stumble over this thread and be completely confused.

Re: Love mine

Mike G.

>Actually, Norm has a book by that title as does Jim Tolpin. I've read both of them and as far as practicality, Tolpin's book is better by far. Norm's book is almost like an autobiography while Jim's book is a "how to".

Mike G. in SC

Re: More on North Bros. Yankee eggbeaters

Walter,Sandusky,Ohio

>I use a North Brothers Yankee Push Drill for small holes and hanging my wifes valuables(tongue in cheek) on the wall.

Re: egg beater drills

kevin French, Antrim NH

>Great Thread. I don't have enough to outfit them with bits, I did fit one with a screwdriver bit and another with my favorite countersink bit.

Guess I've got to be on the lookout for more of these.

Re: A contrary but expanded view *LINK*

Tom Price

>For getting the chuck tight on an eggbeater drill, see the instructions on my web site at the link below. I drill metal with up to 3/8" bits - don't have a problem with slippage.


How to tighten an eggbeater chuck