When I found this brace a few weeks ago, I grabbed it because I didn't have a 6" brace. And because it's a Fray.
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| John S. Fray 6" brace |
John S. Fray was in business from the late1850's to 1909 or 1920 (accounts differ), when they were bought by Stanley. But Stanley continued to use Fray-marked components after the purchase, so it's not clear when this brace was made. There's some evidence below that it's post-1932. I'm sure there are some people out there that could nail it down, but I'm not one of them.
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| THE JOHN S. FRAY CO. |
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| BRIDGEPORT, CONN U.S.A. |
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| The only other marking is this "7" on the ratcheting area, but it's a 6" swing! |
I'm not certain, but the handles might be rosewood - I saw examples on the web that had rosewood and some with walnut. Either way, they're in great shape and I did nothing to clean them up.
The part of this brace that I want to point out is the chuck, or bit-holder.
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| Jaws opened |
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| Jaws closed |
I found a website by George Langford that had a list of patents related to Fray braces. One of them, applied for in 1928 and granted in 1930 or 1932, shows a bit holder very similar, if not exactly like this one. That's several years after Stanley had bought Fray. Apparently it took a long time to use up the Fray parts that they had purchased.
The chuck jaws were like none other I'd seen before. It is a two-jaw chuck and after wrestling with them for a while, I got them removed from the housing.
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| Pointing to what I think is an oil port. Loosening the screw to the right allows the jaws to come free. |
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| The jaws removed and cleaned up |
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| Looking down into the chuck where the jaws go. The bright spot is part of a threaded section on the inside wall of the knurled outer shaft. |
In the picture of the jaws above, you can see a threaded section on the jaws, just next to the leaf springs on the right end. These engage with inside threads deep inside the chuck. When the knurled section of the chuck is turned, the chuck pulls the jaws inside and they clamp on the shank of an auger bit and grab it tight. That little screw on the knurled part of the chuck's housing somehow keeps the jaws in place. I can't quite see what's going on in there, but the screw does it's job.
Here's another picture looking down inside the chuck while the jaws are in place. Down in the bottom, there is a recess shaped to accommodate the square tapered shank of an auger bit.
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| Tough to get a good picture of the recess where an auger bit sits |
After a bit is set in that recess, the knurled shaft is turned and the jaws grip tightly on the auger bit. And I mean it REALLY grabs tight!
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| Here's a bit tightened in the jaws |
If it helps to understand the mechanism, here is a picture from the original patent (thanks to DATAMP and Google Patents).
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| I hope this pic comes out OK. It downloaded as a PNG file rather than JPG |
Here's a link to the Patent picture, if the above doesn't show up well in the blog.
The tough thing about this brace is that I can't remove the chuck to clean the innards. I cleaned what I could with dental tools and small brushes (and I pulled out a lot of crap), then oiled it generously. It worked as found, but it works more smoothly now.
To clean up the brace, I wire-brushed most of the metal parts fairly lightly just to clean off the grunge. And I left the wood parts alone - they were already in pretty good shape.
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| And there she is |
It's always nice to see different mechanisms like this. I don't necessarily get all there is to understand about it. For example, what are the leaf springs on the ends of the jaws for? And why is that little screw in the knurled section needed? Well, it's good to learn about these things anyway.