Restoring a Vintage Hand Drill

Builder/Blogger: Steve Eubanks

This was a fun weekend restoration project that started, as they often do, at the flea market. Actually, this one may have come from the Azusa Swap Meet - always an adventure! I picked up this cool Stanley No. 733 Special hand-drill that was in pretty rough-looking shape, but it had both original wood handles, and all the gears worked, even though they were pretty dirty. The rust looked like it was all on the surface, so I figured I would give it a chance.

All it really took was some wire brush and steel wool cleanup on the metal parts and they came out nice and clean. I sanded back the wooden handles and treated them with several coats of teak oil.

One of the neat things about this drill is that it's a two-speed drill. You can see the two sets of cogs on the main gear, which is what allows the user to switch between speeds. Neat trick. I think it turned out pretty nice, and it works a treat as an actual drill.