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Hand tools for drilling

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Every hand tool that makes a hole without a motor, all 26 grouped by four jobs: turning a bit, starting a hole, boring wood, and sizing the hole afterwards. Hole size decides which one you want, and the shank shape decides what will hold it.

9 are marked essential: a general kit is short without them.

Part of the full hand tools list, 73 tools in 11 groups.

Drills that turn a bit 6

The four tools that hold a bit and rotate it. Which one you reach for is decided by hole size and by how much feed pressure the job needs.

  • Eggbeater hand drill: A vintage eggbeater style hand drill with a wooden handle, side crank and metal gear wheel, three jaw chuckEssential

    Eggbeater hand drill

    Geared hand drill with a side crank and a three-jaw chuck, taking ordinary round-shank bits up to about 8mm. The gearing multiplies your cranking speed, and the two-handed grip keeps it steady enough for accurate work in wood.

  • An antique breast drill with a curved steel breast plate at the top, side crank handle and large gear wheel

    Breast drill

    A larger geared hand drill with a curved steel plate at the top, so you can lean your chest into it. That extra feed pressure is what lets it take bigger bits and drill steel, which an eggbeater cannot manage.

  • A carpenters bit brace with a wooden head and gripEssential

    Bit brace

    A cranked frame that swings a full circle, turning a square-shank auger bit with far more torque than any geared drill. This is the tool for holes above 8mm, and its ratchet lets it work in a corner where a full sweep is impossible.

  • A push drill with a spiral ratchet shaft, cylindrical handle and small fluted drill point

    Push drill

    A spiral-ratchet drill that spins its bit as you push the handle down and rewinds as you release. It works one-handed, which is its whole point: the other hand holds the hinge or the catch you are drilling for.

  • A pin vice hand drill holder with a knurled metal body and small collet chuck holding a fine drill bit

    Pin vice

    A pencil-sized handle with a tiny collet chuck, turned between finger and thumb for holes under 2mm. Model makers and instrument repairers use it because no geared drill runs slowly or gently enough at that scale.

  • An archimedes drill with a long spiral twisted metal shaft and sliding wooden collar, fine drill point

    Archimedes drill

    A spiral shaft with a sliding collar that spins the bit back and forth as you pump it. The reciprocating action suits soft materials and delicate work, where a bit turning in one direction would grab and tear.

Starting a hole 6

A twist bit skates on a flat surface, and a hole that starts in the wrong place cannot be moved. These tools put a mark the bit cannot leave.

  • A bradawl with a wooden bulb handle and short flat chisel edged steel pointEssential

    Bradawl

    A short chisel-edged spike in a bulb handle, pressed and twisted to open a pilot hole in softwood. The flat edge severs fibres across the grain first, so the hole does not split along it the way a round point would.

  • A gimlet hand boring tool with a wooden T handle and shell shaped cutter with a screw lead pointEssential

    Gimlet

    A T-handled shell cutter with a lead screw that pulls itself into softwood, boring a clean 2mm to 6mm hole with no chuck involved. Faster than fetching a drill for a single hole, and it cannot wander off the mark.

  • A steel centre punch with a knurled body and sharp conical hardened pointEssential

    Centre punch

    A hardened steel point struck with a hammer to dimple metal before drilling. Without it a twist bit skates across the surface, and on a curved or polished face there is nothing else that will hold the point where you want it.

  • An automatic centre punch with a knurled adjustable cap, cylindrical body and hardened point

    Automatic centre punch

    A spring-loaded punch that fires its own blow when you press it down, so no hammer is needed and no second hand is occupied. The strike force adjusts by turning the cap, which matters on thin sheet that would dent.

  • A scratch awl with a turned wooden handle and long round tapered steel point

    Scratch awl

    A round tapered point in a handle, used to scribe layout lines and to mark a centre in wood. Unlike a bradawl it does not cut fibres, so it marks without opening a hole, which is what you want when the line still might move.

  • A birdcage awl with a wooden handle and square section tapered steel blade

    Birdcage awl

    A square-section tapered awl that cuts a four-sided hole as you twist it, clearing waste rather than only compressing it. Named for the cage makers who bored thousands of them, and still the neatest way to make a hole for a small screw.

Bits for boring wood 8

What actually cuts the hole. The shank shape decides which drill will hold it, so check that before anything else.

  • A wood auger bit with a long single twist spiral flute, screw lead point and square tapered shankEssential

    Auger bit

    A long spiral bit with a screw lead and a square tapered shank, made for a brace. The lead screw pulls the bit through at a fixed rate and the spiral lifts the waste out, so a deep hole clears itself rather than packing solid.

  • An expansive bit for a brace with an adjustable sliding cutter arm, calibrated scale and square tapered shank

    Expansive bit

    A brace bit with an adjustable cutter that slides out to set any diameter across its range, typically 22mm to 75mm. One bit replaces a dozen large augers, at the cost of a slower cut and a scale you must set carefully.

  • A centre bit for a brace with a central point, single side nicker and flat cutting wing, square shank

    Centre bit

    An older brace bit with a centre spur, a side nicker and a flat cutting wing, for shallow flat-bottomed holes. It has no lead screw, which makes it the choice where a self-feeding auger would burst through thin stock.

  • A spoon bit with a hollow rounded half tube cutting end and long straight shank

    Spoon bit

    A hollow half-round cutter that can start a hole at an angle and steer as it goes, which no pointed bit can do. Chair makers use it for the compound-angle leg sockets that define a Windsor seat.

  • A gimlet bit with a shell shaped cutting body and screw lead point on a short shank

    Gimlet bit

    A small brace or drill bit with a screw lead and a shell body, for pilot holes from 3mm to 8mm. It self-feeds like an auger but has no spiral to clear waste, so it is for shallow work only.

  • HSS twist bit: A high speed steel twist drill bit with two spiral flutes and a plain round shankEssential

    HSS twist bit

    The ordinary round-shank bit, and the only thing an eggbeater or breast drill will hold properly. High speed steel cuts wood, plastic and mild steel, and at hand-drill speeds it stays sharp far longer than in any power tool.

  • A rose countersink bit with a conical head covered in cutting teeth and a plain round shankEssential

    Rose countersink

    A cone of cutting teeth that widens the mouth of a hole so a screw head sits flush. Turned in a brace or a hand drill it cuts slowly enough to leave a clean cone, where a power drill tends to chatter and leave rings.

  • Brace screwdriver bit: A screwdriver bit for a brace with a wide flat blade tip and square tapered shank

    Brace screwdriver bit

    A flat driver tip on a square tapered shank, turning a large screw with the whole leverage of the brace sweep. For a seized 100mm screw it applies torque no wrist can, and slowly enough not to shear the head off.

Sizing and finishing a hole 6

A bored hole is rarely the final size. These tools take it to a fit, clean up the edges, or make it deeper than the bit was long.

  • A hand reamer with straight fluted tapered cutting body and square drive end

    Hand reamer

    A fluted tapered cutter turned by a tap wrench to enlarge a hole by a fraction and true it round. Drilling to size then reaming is how you get a hole a shaft actually fits, because a twist bit alone always cuts slightly oversize and slightly oval.

  • A taper reamer with a T handle and long steeply tapered fluted blade

    Taper reamer

    A steeply tapered blade, often T-handled, that opens a hole progressively as you push and twist. Plumbers and sheet metal workers use it to size a hole in thin material, where a drill of that diameter would snatch and tear.

  • A metal bit depth stop collar with a thumbscrew, sized to clamp on a drill bit shank

    Bit depth stop

    A collar that clamps to the bit shank and halts the cut at a set depth. On a brace with a self-feeding auger this is the difference between a 20mm mortise and a hole through the far face of the workpiece.

  • An auger bit extension bar with a square socket at one end and square tapered shank at the other

    Auger bit extension

    A square-socketed steel bar that carries an auger bit an extra 300mm or more, for drilling through a joist bay or a wall. Electricians ran cable this way long before long flexible bits existed, and it is still steadier.

  • A hardened steel dowel plate with a row of graduated round holes of different sizes

    Dowel plate

    A hardened steel plate with graded holes, used to drive a riven blank through and produce a dowel that matches your bored hole exactly. It solves the real problem with bought dowel, which is that it never quite fits.

  • A double ended tap wrench with two knurled adjustable arms and a central square jawEssential

    Tap wrench

    A double-armed clamp that grips the square drive on a reamer or a tap and gives you controlled two-handed turning. Feel matters more than force here, since a reamer turned too fast chatters and a tap turned too hard snaps.

Choosing a hand drilling tool

Which of these you need comes down to hole size, and whether you can get a power drill into the space.

Why drill by hand at all

Three reasons, and none of them is nostalgia. Control is the first: an eggbeater drill turns a 3mm bit slowly enough that you feel the moment it exits the far face, which is the moment tearout happens. Access is the second, since a brace with a short bit reaches into a cabinet corner no drill body fits. Power is the third, or the lack of it, on a site with no supply and a flat battery.

Against that, hand drilling is slow. Nobody bores forty holes with a brace by choice. These are precision and access tools, not production tools.

Feel
You sense breakthrough before it splinters the far face, which a cordless drill at 1,200rpm gives you no chance to catch.
Reach
A brace and a short auger get into corners a drill body cannot enter.
Silence
No noise, no dust extraction, nothing to unplug, which matters indoors and in occupied rooms.

Match the tool to the hole size

Hand drilling splits cleanly by diameter, and picking the wrong tool for the size is the usual mistake. Under 3mm, a gimlet or a bradawl is faster than anything with a crank, because you are really just displacing wood fibres rather than cutting a bore.

From 3mm to 8mm an eggbeater drill is the right tool: geared, two-handed, and happy with ordinary twist bits. Above 8mm the gearing runs out of torque and you want a brace, which trades speed for leverage through its sweep.

Under 3mm
Bradawl or gimlet. No chuck, no gearing, and the hole is started and finished in one motion.
3mm to 8mm
Eggbeater drill with a twist bit. Fast enough to be practical, slow enough to stay accurate.
8mm and up
Brace with an auger bit. The sweep gives the leverage the gears cannot.

The bits are not interchangeable

A brace takes a tapered square shank, which is what the two jaws of its chuck are shaped to grip. Put a round twist bit in a brace and it will slip under load. Put a square-shank auger in a three-jaw hand drill chuck and it will sit crooked.

This catches people who buy a secondhand brace and a box of modern bits and cannot understand why nothing holds. Check the shank before you buy either.

Square taper
Brace only. Auger bits, expansive bits, and the older centre bits all use it.
Round shank
Eggbeater and breast drills, same as any power drill takes.
Depth
A brace auger has a lead screw that pulls itself in, so it needs a stop or a backing board to avoid punching through.

Keeping the hole straight

Nothing here has a guide, so straight is on you. The reliable method is to start the hole, then sight the tool against a square stood on the workpiece, correct once, and carry on. Checking from two directions at ninety degrees catches the lean that one view hides.

For anything that has to be genuinely square, a simple wooden guide block with a hole already bored through it costs nothing and works better than a steady hand.

Start with an awl
A punched centre stops the bit wandering on the first turn, which is where most crooked holes begin.
Sight twice
Check against a square from the front and the side, not one or the other.
Back the work
A scrap block behind the exit face turns tearout into a clean hole.

Buying old rather than new

This is one of the few tool categories where the secondhand market is genuinely better than the new one. Braces and eggbeater drills were made in enormous numbers for decades, they have few parts that fail, and a good one costs less than a poor new one.

What to check: the chuck jaws should close on a bit without slipping, the crank should turn without side play, and the gear teeth should be unchipped. Surface rust is cosmetic. A cracked chuck or a stripped gear is not worth the repair.

Test the chuck
Grip a bit and try to twist it by hand. Any slip means worn jaws, which is the one fault worth walking away from.
Feel the gears
Turn the crank slowly. A regular catch means a chipped tooth.
Ignore rust
Surface rust comes off with abrasive and oil. It tells you nothing about whether the tool works.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a hand drill and a brace?
A hand drill, often called an eggbeater, uses gears and a side crank to spin a round-shank bit quickly, and suits holes up to about 8mm. A brace uses a wide sweep for leverage instead of gearing, turns a square-shank auger slowly with much more torque, and is the tool for larger holes.
Can I use ordinary drill bits in a hand drill?
In an eggbeater or breast drill, yes. Both take round-shank bits in a three-jaw chuck, exactly like a power drill. A brace is different: its two-jaw chuck is made for a tapered square shank, and a round bit will slip in it under load.
What is the largest hole a brace can drill?
With an expansive bit, around 75mm in softwood. With ordinary auger bits, sets usually run to about 25mm. The limit is not the brace but your leverage, and hardwood at the top of that range is genuinely hard work.
Do I still need a bradawl if I own a drill?
For pilot holes in softwood under about 3mm, a bradawl is faster than fetching a drill and it cannot wander off the mark. It also displaces fibres rather than cutting them, which grips a screw slightly better. It stays useful, which is why it is marked essential here.
Why does my hand drill wander off the centre mark?
Almost always because the hole was not started. A twist bit has a chisel point that skates on a flat surface, so punch a centre with an awl or a centre punch first. The other cause is pushing sideways while cranking, which a guide block fixes.
Is a breast drill just a bigger hand drill?
Effectively yes, with one important difference. The curved plate at the top lets you lean your chest into the work, so you can apply far more feed pressure than two hands allow. That makes it the tool for larger bits and for drilling metal, where feed pressure is what keeps the bit cutting.
Can these tools drill metal?
A breast drill can, with a HSS twist bit and cutting oil, and it was a standard fitter's tool for exactly that. An eggbeater will manage thin sheet. A brace will not, because auger bits are wood-cutting geometry and the speed is wrong.
What is a gimlet used for now?
Small pilot holes in softwood, particularly where a drill will not fit. It is a shell-shaped cutter on a T-handle that pulls itself in like a tiny auger, and it will start and finish a 3mm hole in one motion without any chuck at all.