I have already mentioned beam drills, which I consider boring machines, but what is normally meant by boring machines are geared drills. Those would include hand drills (wheel drills, ‘eggbeater drill’ {a later term}, etc.), breast drills (with oval plates to push against the chest) and Wood Boring Machines, those set up in a wooden and metal framework.
This type of drill was introduced in either the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and is documented in the 18-teens. It had a screw chuck that secured the drill bit and had knobs remnicient of hand braces but with the introduction of the geared crown wheel and the straight or bevel gear to transfer the circular motion form one plane to another at 90 degrees and greatly enhanced by the mechanical advantage offered by the gear ratio.
The breast drill is a larger version of the above drill with a flat plate replacing the knob, allowing the craftsman to push his chest into the drill, freeing his hands to turn the crank and hold an auxillary handle on the pivot and opposite the geared crown wheel. The length of the arm to the turning knob varies from a knob mounted to the rim of the wheel, to a bar that extends beyond the wheel adding to the mechanical advantage.
Early versions of the above two machines had screw chucks, collet chucks and two jaw chucks and eventually the three jaw Jacobs chuck
The next boring machine is the Wood or Timber Boring Engine (or Machine). This machine is generally used for timber framing, for drilling out mortices and for drilling holes for trunnels or treenails. The wooden base that holds the superstructure is actually a seat for the operator to sit, holding it to the work and keeps the drill boring true.
Some had metal arcs like this one that allows the hole to be bored at any angle, and repeated accurately. There is also a gear rack that is visible on the superstructure, this is for extracting the drill from the wood. When the machine is positioned where it needs to drill the hole, the operator sits on the base, releases a hook holding the mechanism up in the superstructure framework and both hand cranks are turned until the hole is drilled to its proper depth. At depth, the rack gear is moved to engage a gear and continuous turning of the hand cranks pulls the bit out of the hole with the greatest of ease.
I have seen versions of this from the 1850’s, there may be earlier versions, and some only adjust along one quadrant instead of two as in the above. The bits have round shanks are usually twist bits and are held in the machines by a screw chuck. The two hand cranks and gear mechanism makes this an aggressive drill, even with big twist bits and easily bores big holes in timbers.
Stephen