Cole drill

The "Cole Drill" is a ratchet drill made by the Cole Tool Company. The beauty of this type of tool lies in the feed screw. It can be tightened down, exerting extreme pressure on the drill point. Materials such as spring, stainless and tool steel can be drilled with ease using ordinary high speed drill bits.

The Cole Drill great for drilling large holes in pieces that are too large for the drill press. Due to the rigid clamping setup, it will also drill holes with a degree of precision that is not achievable with a hand operated drill motor.

A Cole Drill cuts at low speed with pressure. There are times when you need a hole in a place it would be very hard to get a power tool into, and many say the Cole Drill will cut steel much better than a hand drill. It wouldn't be hard to make one, so I will look into it one day as a project.

The drill is attached to a feedscrew operated by the hand crank. Because of the pressures created, even hardened steels may be cut with ordinary HSS bits.

It's trick is the screw feed which advances the quill to bring 500+ lbs pressure to bear on the drill point. Turn the crank to drill a rev, turn the ring to feed the quill. A 1/2" drill goes through 1/4" steel plate in a dozen revolution