Stanley No 811 brace

Friday morning I was running out of bread.  My favorite white bread around here is from a small bakery in Bridgetown (where Heather was born). So we did a bread run this morning. While we were going that way, may as well keep on trucking west to Annapolis Royal for a chocolate run Tm.

You know,  that little shop with the perfect business model for me:
- Hand made chocolate (delicious)
- A new/used book section (must have)
- And her hubby, Terry sells antique and specifically, tools (can it get better??, somebody pinch me :-)

It was so good to see Terry, up and around, gabbing about tools.  Its been a while I saw him, he is battling a serious illness.   While we were discussing something about Stanley, I spied a metal brace with a Sampson chuck on it?  Don't see that often around here.

So $20 later it was mine, no argument there.

Yes, it has some issues, hence the low price, with the enclosed ratchet mechanism (happens a lot, cause by the hardening grease they used back then), but little rust, some gunk, beautiful rosewood handle and head. Both the handle and the head turned, albeit slowly, sticky. Wanna guess what grease they used??

No biggies, I was satisfied that I could turn the ring and worked the ratchet both ways and lock.

Nowhere near what it should be, but easy fix... most of the time (Bob 8 - Brace 1)

So lets ID it and see what makes it tick.

Most often, you will find manufacturer name and Model No on the brace arm.

STANLEY

 Flip the arm over

No. 811-10IN-Y

So what we have is a concealed mechanism Stanley brace No 811 with a 10 inch sweep.
Incidentally, its siblings, No 810 is considered to be THE best Stanley braces, but don't take my word on it.  More later on this.

There was only three braces models in the 800 series .
The No 811 was manufactured between 1911-1942
It featured the following's patent during its run. (Walter 96)

24 Nov 1908 Bartholomew's concealed ratchet

13 Jul 1909 Bartholomew's Ball bearing chuck

16 Aug 1910 Schade's patent on the jaws (Universal jaws)

4 Oct 1932 Stowell's on the chuck (improvement on ball bearing chuck and modified spring for jaws)

It was nickel plated and featured a Cocobolo (which is in the Rosewood family and often confused with Rosewood) head and handle.
It came in 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 in sweep, the largest range in the 3 braces No8xx series

At the same time, the no 813 was also offered 1911-1947
It was billed as a Heavy Duty brace with a boxed ratchet and Universal jaws

16 years later, the last of the No 800 series came along, the No 810.
This was Stanley's Aristocrat of braces, featuring Bodmer's patent on the ratchet mechanism.

Bodmer Ratchet patent, as used on the No 810.

16 divisions (clicks) in one complete rotation, using vertical pawls.

Making it very low torque to operate and very smooth

Until then all the Stanley made braces featured the same concealed ratchet mechanism (811, 901, 921 etc.) The famed North Bros concealed ratchet braces would come after their take over by Stanley in 1946.


So the line came out as such
810 - 10, 12, 14 in sweep 1927-1935 (during the SW era)
811 - 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 in sweep 1911-1942
813 - 8, 10, 12, 14 in sweep 1911-1947

They produced a large variations of braces, but in the ratchet braces, they came in three flavour of ratchets, 3 variations of jaws and 3 ways to attach the head.

From LAP reproduction of Stanley Catalog No 34, 1914 edition

The three ratchets in question

From L-R

Concealed (No 811), Box (No 923) and Open (No 3410 PEXTO)

The three types of heads

Braces used in these examples

Stanley, No 811, 923, Pexto 3410, Stanley (Fray) No 108, oh and the Footprint

Back to our No 811

Nice chunk of Cocobolo

The ball bearing head has an oil port.

Stanley call that head style: Metal clad , bearing head

 on their best quality models

From a distance, to me that looked like a Sampson chuck, as often found on Pexto braces.

Turns out, that is something else... Bartholomew. 

Both featured a bigger nose because, they both have a ball bearing nose piece

The logo on the sleeve reads

STANLEY (in notch rectangle)

MADE IN CAN.

PAT. PENDING

Ok, so that dates it after 1907, the start of Stanley Canada, but which patent could it be??

The notch Rectangle with Stanley inside first came out with the SW  era

With some minor variations this last between 1926-1932 and thereabout

The notch rectangle makes it late 20, early 30 at the earliest

Pat. Pending

The oldest patent attributed to this model that was applied for was on Sep 13, 1929
Surprise, my chuck has such a feature after I cleaned it

So it would appear that the patent in question is US Patent 1,880,521

Issued Oct 4, 1932

Ring is segmented, covering the bearing race opening

Pic is after I cleaned it

That would then dated my model to:
Between Sep 13 1929 (Pat Applied for, or Patent Pending) to Oct 4th 1932 (Patent issued)

I gave it a quick clean up on the drill press with my wire wheel

First, I tried to remove the head, to protect it from the wire brush.

With all three screws out, head is still solidly wedged in there.

looking at catalog copy, it almost seems like the head is screwed in (wood threads)??

After going over the brace frame and chuck with the wire brush, opened up the chuck

It featured the Universal jaws, mounted on a spring.

That spring shape is from our patent of 1932

Carefully remove the spring with the jaws without bending it out of shape.

The jaws are removed from spring in this pic.

DO NOT loose these parts...

The chuck was dirty inside and a tad gummy.

Soaked good with Krud Kutter and waited a bit.

Cleaned the inside with the round brush, wrapped in a shop towel.

Reamed inside, rinse and repeat (almost literally)

I am happy with the inside.

That is when I realized the nose part rotated separately from the shell...

See Patent above

Before reassembly, I lubricated all the moving parts with a special lubricant

JIG-A-LOO

Pic was taken before I cleaned it.

That JIG-A-LOO stuff is extremely slippery, watch out where you spray it. I makes wooden floors and laminated flooring very, very slippery. Forgot where the spot is?  Just wear wool socks and walk around the floor. Were you slip and broke your leg mark's the spot... You been warned :-)

Is it really that slippery? Heck, it works miracle on tools!!

A tad smelly in an enclosed space (if you go nuts and do a few more tools),

 but thankfully I can open my new windows :-)

So putting down a piece of cardboard on my shop floor, then putting the brace on it, I sprayed the selector and mechanism, the handle bushings, the head bearings and the inside bearing in the shell
I sprayed some WD40 on the threads for the shell then re-assembled the whole thing.
A tad overkill, since Jig-A-Loo is like WD40 plus a lubricant.

The selector and mechanism, took two rounds of Jig-A-Loo sprays, but it is now purring correctly.

I am the proud owner of one of the Second best Stanley made brace (this No 811),
Model No 810 with its innovative 16 notches ratchet (Baby smooth), is still justifiably, No 1

So lets make some holes, No 2!
Aye Aye Capt

A tad heavy on the ratchet side, but works like a champ

This brace weigh in at a hefty 3 pounds plus!!

It is screaming, I came out of a machine shop, not the forging floor! :-) 

It can then take its place inside my boring till

And I see that the brace besides it need some buffing at the wheel...

Done!

Bob, off to the garage to clean another one, and another one...