URY: THE BRACE AND BIT in its
nonfactory form conforms to a general design pattern in which none of
the components are ever precisely alike. This aspect of variety of
detail--sophistication, crudeness, decorative qualities or the
like--reflects something of the individuality of the toolmaker, a
quality completely lost in the standardization of the carpenter's brace.
(Smithsonian photo 49794-A.)]

English tool design in the 18th century also influenced the continental
toolmakers. This can be seen in figure 39 in a transitional-type
bitstock (accession 319556) from the Low Countries. Adopting an English
shape, but still preserving the ancient lever device for holding the bit
in place, the piece with its grapevine embellishment is a marked
contrast to the severely functional brass chucks on braces of English
manufacture. No less a contrast are metallic versions of the brace.
These begin to appear with some regularity in the U.S. patent
specifications of the 1840's; their design is apparently derived from
18th-century precedents. Roubo (fig. 40) illustrated a metal bitstock in
1769, as did Ford, Whitmore & Brunton, makers of jewelers' and
watchmakers' tools, of Birmingham, England, in their trade catalogue of
1775 (fig. 41). Each suggests a prototype of the patented forms of the
1840's. For example, in 1852, Jacob Switzer of Basil, Ohio, suggested,
as had Roubo a hundred years earlier, that the bitstock be used as a
screwdriver (fig. 42); but far more interesting than Switzer's idea was
his delineation of the brace itself, which he described as "an ordinary
brace and bit stock" (U.S. pat. 9,457). The inference is that such a
tool form was already a familiar one among the woodworking trades in the
United States. Disregarding the screwdriver attachment, which is not
without merit, Switzer's stock represents an accurate rendering of what
was then a well-known form if not as yet a rival of the older wooden
brace. Likewise, J. Parker Gordon's patent 52,042 of 1866 exemplifies
the strengthening of a basic tool by the use of iron (fig. 43) and, as a
result, the achievement of an even greater functionalism in design. The
complete break with the medieval, however, is seen in a drawing
submitted to the Commissioner of Patents in 1865 (pat. 51,660) by Milton
V. Nobles of Rochester, New York.[9] Nobles' creation was of thoroughly
modern design and appearance in which, unlike earlier types, the bit was
held in place by a solid socket, s