Thread: Tool Identification?

What a find - a complete hand-held hand-powered impact drill for drilling into masonry, stone, concrete etc. Very handy, but slow.

You use it by inserting the drill bit into the handle as shown in your pic, then, holding the plastic handle in your left hand (assuming you are right handed) position the drill bit where you want the hole to be, and start hitting the steel stud that protrudes above the handle with a nice big hammer. If you continue doing this, and rotate the drill in your left hand, you will slowly drill a hole. The big plastic handle provides a little bit of comfort ??? / isolation from the shock of the hammer blows on the steel shaft.

The small galvanised piece looks like a drift that you would hammer into the slot in the handle to loosen the tapered end of a drill bit from the handle after you had used it to drill a hole.

While the design might have changed a bit, and the materials might be more refined, this technology has been used to bore holes in stone throughout history since the early Bronze Age. Today we use a nice impact or hammer drill (air, hydraulic or electric) and purpose-designed masonry drills, but the principle of operation is the same.

I hope this helps,

Cheerio

Rekon you have inherited a masonry worker muscle enhancer. As woodie one said, hand held masonry drills. Very hard work.

Thanks for the replies. I couldn't imagine having to drill holes like that all day.

One of my old bosses long since passed away told me once that when he started his apprenticeship in the twenties his company had a job installing a suspended ceiling in an old two storey factory. I was his job to drill something like two hundred 3/8 holes 3" deep into the concrete slab of the floor above.
Try just one Conrad and tell us how you went. ;-)

Stewie