It's worth noting that the photograph halfway down the page of the man using a hand drill, which appears like it may have been taken quite recently, was actually taken 75 years ago, in 1942:
You're not kidding. It looks reminiscent of '60's early 70's work. Early Meyerowitz[1] for example. Coincidentally, in the street photography genre, somewhat hot is what is called "staged photography"[2]. Although some staged photography attempts to capture candid moments found between the staged photos.
One device not specifically mentioned by the article is my personal favorite, the "Cole Drill", named after Cole Manufacturing which seems to have originated the concept. Google for image, but its basically a portable, manual drill-press with a ratcheting mechanism. I was unaware of their existence until sometime last year, but it has become one of my favorite tools. I had always desired some kind of small drill-press for doing random wood/metal/pcb work, and the Cole Drill fits the bill perfectly. It is also unique in that the feed is advanced with a threaded sleeve which makes it possible to exert upwards of 1000 lbs. on the bit, making it ideal for drilling hard materials. I've yet to come across a standard motorized press that could do this. Yes, its slow compared to a power feed, but i can't store a Delta under the sink in my tiny ass apartment either.
Another really cool style of hand drill, which this article completely missed, is the Yankee Drill [0]. (More generically called a Push Drill.) A spade-like drill bit cuts when turned either direction. The handle has a screw mechanism and spring so that you can push the handle down into the work to turn the bit one way, and lift the handle back up to turn it the other way. The up-down motion is easy to get a hold of and very fast to do. It's amazing for drilling pilot holes and for putting holes in walls that are right next to furniture or cabinets - the diameter of the entire tool is only 1.25 or 1.5 inches. The handle stores a variety of bits inside.
I came to mention this. I have several styles in my shop but I never really use any of them. I have a larger one, an old Stanley model whose number I have forgotten, that has seen some use. The smaller ones are something I've just toyed with.
I have them only as novelty items, really. I much prefer a drill press, where I can.
I kinda want to also build a foot-powered lathe, though I'd never use that either.
Anyhow, they made bigger versions than the Yankee. I can't justify using them, but they are neat to hold and are fascinating examples of ingenuity. It's dark and I am in bed, but if reminded I will get some pictures.
I have something like this that I managed to find at a Goodwill thrift store (of all places).
It's basically the same kind of device, but looks like a screwdriver. The bits aren't twist drills (though you can chuck those in as well), but rather something like a shaft with a stepped channel down one edge. The whole tool was obviously made "back in the day" - completely metal. The bits store in the handle (screw-on cap - again, all metal).
I love collecting and using older tools like this, if I think they'll be useful. I've got a couple of other oddities as well.
One's a set of "interchangeable auger bits" - they look like flat twist drills, but wider - almost like a spade bit and an auger bit combined. Each is chucked in a special chuck, then that is chucked into your drill. Again, it was another small but useful set from Craftsman, and it works great (I've used it for both wood and HDPE cutting board material).
The other weird tool - which I have yet to use - is kinda scary, and I don't know if I should even try: It's a circular saw blade meant to cut curves (!!!). It's triangular in shape, teeth on all the edges. Again, I have no idea if or how well it works. Maybe one day I'll get brave enough to try (I have used a metal cutoff blade in my circular saw - which was crazy to me, but it worked great).
Both of these other weird tools I found at Goodwill as well (so maybe what I'm saying, is if you're looking for such tools, Goodwill is a good place to look).
They look similar though so I can understand the confusion but they are different - one is drill and the other is just a holding tool. The end of the Yankee push drill rotates when you push or pull the handle. A pin vise just has a chuck, similar to a drill chuck, but no mechanism to rotate the held piece.
This reminds me of a sheep shearing demonstration I saw a while ago. The shearer first cut off a third of the sheep's wool with old fashioned scissors. Then he pulled out some pre electrical device that was powered by an audience volunteer at a lever/pump. This rapidly cut through the next third of the sheep wool. The final third he took off with modern electrical shears, barely faster than the previous gadget (though, notably, only requiring a single human to do the job).
Sometimes you forget just how ingenious and good pre electrical tools could be.
Had a similar experience with a manual earth t-auger. Really quite fast, easy, a pleasure to use, when I wasn't hitting rocks. (but gas earth augers have the same problem)
And, my crosscut saw goes through wood much faster than my shoddy circular saw (which admittedly needs a new blade)
I've come to think that while power tools have clear advantages for professionals where volume is large and time is money, we've done ourselves a disservice abandoning simple manual tools for the average bloke. They can be nearly as fast, they cost much less, and they require virtually no maintenance in comparison.
Circular saws with blunt blades are downright dangerous please be very careful with that thing and fix that blade. The saw now requires a lot more force to work and can get jammed in the hole far easier because it doesn't really cut wide enough. The momentum in the blade can then cause the whole saw to jump out and that's really scary.
Certainly the handsaw needs sharpening sometimes, and the same goes for many other hand tools. And the circular saw is not nearly as bad as some tools. But when I think of lawnmowers and especially chainsaws, I have spent more time repairing, oiling, refueling, cleaning, flushing, prepping for winter storage, and diagnosing them than I have actually using them!
Fortunately sharpening is often pretty easy, and it's quite a useful skill considering how many things can be sharpened. Kitchen knives, lawn mowers, axes, hatches, scissors, pruners, shaving blades, chainsaws, shears...
"Had a similar experience with a manual earth t-auger. Really quite fast, easy, a pleasure to use, when I wasn't hitting rocks."
Having acquired quite a bit of experience drilling post holes over the last 1/2 year, I respectfully but vehemently disagree. The context: I bought some land last year as an experiment in how much ecosystem services a city dweller can provide himself, for his own family, when having that land next to the primary residence isn't possible. So it's both about being low-tech (for several reasons - price, accessibility, operator skill level required, self-reliance, ...) but also about being efficient enough to let 1 or 2 people work enough land to do something 'useful' on; in my case about 1 ha (2 acres) but I think the same would hold for half as well as 5 times that. I started with a cheap t-auger, which I broke literally on first use (I hadn't even gotten 10cm (~3") into the ground), then a good auger with which I can put up fence poles at a rate of say 15 a day. (it takes between 9 and 25 minutes with a median of 18 minutes to drill a 50 cm (1 1/2') hole, ram the pole down another 20 cm using a ramming block, and side fill the excess space; this is in medium heavy clay soil with quite a lot of stones and subsurface roots, so it is pretty much worst case scenario).
Then I got a gas-powered drill with which I can place posts at a rate > 1/10mins, so almost double the size of doing it with a manual auger; furthermore, it's possible to keep this pace for much longer than with a manual auger because it's much less tiring. So I think you can put in > 40 posts per day with a gas powered machine (but I haven't measured or done this yet).
I've had similar experiences using hand drills, screwdrivers and various kinds of saws, but I haven't measured as much for those.
Anyway my point is - of course you can do everything by hand if you spend enough time. People used to dig canals by hand all the time. But for the modern person aspiring to self-sufficiency and not having access to cheap mass labor that was available in the heyday of manually powered tools, making the best possible use of power tools (given constraints of availability of electricity etc. of course) is very important. In other words, my initial goals of using hand tools didn't quite survive impact with reality, and the first big lesson I've learned from the ordeal is that the romantic notion of using 18th-century-and-earlier technology isn't really feasible for practical purposes unless you go all-out in living like it was back then. (so I mean, people survived back then, so I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to do it again if you go all out; but if want to keep one foot in the modern world and see self-sufficiency as a part-time or fallback thing, like the vast majority of people into this sort of thing do, you have to mix and match to increase your efficiency).
Sure, that's kind of what I was getting at with the average bloke who does this four times year and the professional who does it forty times a day. You're not the average bloke, and for you the added repair & maintenance time of a gas-powered auger pays off because of just how many holes you're digging.
It's really sad that auger bits for braces aren't manufactured any more as far as I can tell. There are places that sell new old stock, and there are Irwin bits available but only in sets worth $500 (not sure if new or old stock). You might have to pay $30 for a single bit.
I bought a bunch of random sized new old stock and I was lucky to obtain some untouched bits when I bought a dead man's tool chest a while back.
I do woodworking exclusively with hand tools and the brace and bit is just a great tool. It's much nicer than hassling with power drills or trying to wrestle the work piece on the drill press. A cordless drill can get holes drilled just fine (although there's a risk of tearout on the opposite side) but for removing waste from mortises or other joinery a cordless drill is useless because you don't have a reliable depth stop.
I also have an egg beater -style drill but unfortunately the chuck is broken. I won't bother buying a new one because I'll almost certainly get one when buying a set of old tools from someone in an online auction.
Some old hand tools are much nicer to work with than their modern counterparts. It's not usually even much slower unless you're doing some mass manufacturing operation with a thousand similar holes or sawcuts. I could never afford a full shop of power tools or the space to put them in but I'm able to do almost anything with hand tools at a fraction of the money and space required.
I seem to be wandering into tool making currently. What hand tools are you most missing that are not produced anymore?
EDIT: Just noticed your other comment. I'm located in Finland too. I've had huge trouble finding hand drill with three jack chuck. I'm seriously considering making a small run of completely new ones.
Are you interested in tool making professionally or as a hobby? Or a small side business?
I'm short of a chuck for an egg beater hand drill so if you intend to produce some, I'm interested.
If professionally, I suggest thinking about cloning old fashioned auger bits because I'm pretty sure you could sell them in batches big enough to be commercially viable.
If as a hobby - well do whatever you need.
There are quite a few hand tool manufacturers appearing in the past few decades and business seems to be booming. There are new premium tools that sell for a nice price.
A problem for commerically viable production is that there are so many old hand tools out there, hiding in sheds and shacks, on antiques stores, kept as decorative items, flea markets that the supply will last for at least a century before there's going to be a shortage.
I personally need a router plane and/or a plough plane. There are new premium ones available at $150-$200, but I'm hesitant pay that because I know I'll run across an old Stanley 71 sooner or later.
Leave your contact information if you want to geek out about tools & crafts.
My idea was to make hand tools with a twist of some sort. As a small side business at first, but maybe get bigger over time. Currently I'm working on bit different type of pruning shears. I'd like to make "tactical" brace drill aimed for off-road enthusiasts and military personnel.
You mentioning mortices reminded me of a machine we had in our woodshop class in high school - we had a morticing (?) machine!
It basically looked and worked like a drill press - but for "drilling" square holes! How you might ask? Well, pretty simple, actually: The "bit" was a drill bit fitted inside a piece of square tubing large enough to allow the bit to fit. At the working end of the tubing (or maybe along the length actually) were slots/holes to allow waste material to eject. The ends of the tubing were beveled (and likely hardened) to act as "chisels" to remove the remainder of the waste for a square hole. I never had a need to use the machine, so I don't know if these "bits" were removable and could be changed out for larger ones, etc - but I now suspect that to be the case; the bit I saw was around 1/2" wide - the machine was very large, and could probably handle up to 1.5" wide bits easily.
Most all of the machine tooling in that large shop dated from years back. My high school was originally built to be the community college of the town, back in the late 1890s (IIRC). It was this way until around the 1940s, when it became the main high school of the town (lots of WPA structures on the campus as well). The city streets used to run thru the campus, but when I got there, they had blocked off the streets, but the campus was still "open" (my senior year was the last year of an "open campus" - afterward, they put fencing around the entire campus, and kids can no longer go off campus to eat during lunch).
The industrial arts shop area was it's own self-contained unit, in a building right in front of the railroad tracks (the high school abutted the Santa Fe switch yard of the town); trains would go slowly by, rumbling the entire building.
The woodshop was huge, easily a 2-3000 sqft space, two stories tall; the upper level was a storage space around a couple sides, but the rest of the floor was open to the ceiling. Built-in vacuum system with ports on the floor (sweep your wood shavings toward them to be sucked up and deposited outside). Lathes, joiners, drill presses, sanders, table saws, band saws, planers, a spray booth - you name it, this shop had it all. Most of the equipment dated from the 1940s and 50s, all in great working shape. Plenty of hand tools, etc.
There was a metal shop too; from what I understand (I never got to see it) it allowed for a complete set of operations - casting, forging, bending, cutting, etc - and was as large as the woodshop and fully stocked as well.
Also in the same building was the drafting class - whether you wanted to learn architectural or mechanical drafting, you could do it. This was before cheap computer-aided drafting was easily available, so everything was done on paper, and we got to make real blueprints as well!
There was also shops for small-engine repair and automotive shop.
So - in theory - that entire building had almost everything needed to manufacture something - from design to actual part. I wish I hadn't been such a geek back then; I really wish I had taken more of an interest in the metal arts, automotive, etc. All I ever took was the drafting and the woodshop class.
And for what its worth, the woodshop class I did as a night class to earn extra credits I didn't need (I just wanted to use the shop). At the end of the class, our "final assignment" was to clean out that upper storage area. We all went up there to find a uniform layer of sawdust about 3 inches thick! Amazing the place never burned down!
Anyhow, up there were also a ton of old student projects from years gone by - just left there, whether by accident, or because the person had no way to get them home, or maybe the rule at one time was you had to pay for the materials, and they had no way to pay?
We found fine examples of student work, some of it dating from the 1950s onward; most had the name of the student and a date penciled on it somewhere (I went to high school from 88-91). Desks, a pew, tables, chairs, a grandfather clock. We even found a "US Civil Defense" pamphlet (with the Turtle guy in a GI helmet, telling you what to do in the event a nuclear bombing! That was another thing about this school - most of the buildings were designated fallout shelters in the basements - and some had "sub-basement" fallout shelters that were locked). We cleaned it all up, and left the woodwork in place. It was like a time capsule that we opened, cleaned up, then closed up again.
I don't know if any of it still exists, if kids there are taught that stuff any more - or if any of them care to learn it. I know I missed out (I was always taking computer-oriented electives) - so today I've had to learn from others or self-teach myself stuff (fortunately I had some great people to learn from, and the internet today).
Mortising machines are not that uncommon in shops, we had one in my school and also a school I went to take woodworking classes as an adult a year or two back. Those machines tend to be high maintenance (requires skill to sharpen the bits!) and at least where I took classes they were out of order.
> with the Turtle guy in a GI helmet, telling you what to do in the event a nuclear bombing!
Hah! I know that guy. I was visiting the US recently and the San Francisco public library (best library I've ever been to!) had a cold war exhibit and some videos of that GI Turtle!
> I don't know if any of it still exists, if kids there are taught that stuff any more
I've heard that shop classes are in a decline (sad), but I there are regularly students showing off their high school shop class projects over at reddit's /r/woodworking, so at least some places have that as an option.
The hand drills have a couple of non-obvious advantages over a normal electric drill.
First, since they're usually slower, it's harder to really screw up and drill a blind hole too deep. As an added bonus, if you mark your depth with tape, it's a lot harder to accidentally push the tape up the bit, and subsequently drill too deep.
Second, I find it much easier to drill a hole perpendicular to the surface I'm drilling in because the handle is in line with the axis of the hole. I find it much harder to do that reliably with an electric drill.
Third, if you pull off the side handle (chef's cap), you can drill quite close to a wall (but not a corner). The handle isn't appreciably larger in diameter than the chuck, so you can drill straight in much closer (6-12mm) than you can with most electric drills.
Fourth, the old ones are beautifully made, and will last forever[0].
Those are on top of the obvious advantage that they need neither a cord nor batteries.
The downsides:
It's harder to get the bit back out; you can't just gun it and pull back like you can with an electric drill. Also, you can't crank in reverse. That usually just loosens the chuck.
You can't really maintain the speed you need to get a clean hole with a brad-point bit. Or maybe that just comes with practice? I haven't managed it yet.
The single speed ones are pretty well done for by the time you hit a 1/4"/6mm bit, especially with a smaller drill.
I have a Miller's Falls #5, and a Goodell-Pratt 5 1/2 [1]. The Goodell-Pratt has a low gear that really ups the capacity to drill larger diameter holes in hardwood.
The Miller's Falls #5 has a double pinion, which I prefer to the single pinion on the Goodell-Pratt. The gearbox on the Goodell-Pratt is also slightly fussy, but it does have a ball bearing thrust bearing.
I know few guys who have gotten through 400v main with an excavator and just loud bang and scare. Those excavators are not insulated in any way, but the cockpit does make Faraday cage. I think they usually continue working after booting every on board computer and getting a new bucket.
The amount of insulation you need is minimal as the excavator blade/drill bit will work as conductor and most of the current then just follows the path it normally would. The flash and bang come from the short period of time when there is small air gap between the electric line and the tool being used and then that gap gets welded shut really fast.
The amount of insulation you need might well be reached with just wooden handles on the drill. Or wearing rubber sole shoes.
I would not take that chance. 400 V to 600 V is the real danger zone in electricity, high enough to do serious damage in a short time, low enough not to arc until it is much too late. Added to that that you're going to be sweaty and that soil conditions might give you good conductance that's an easy way to die.
The slowness has one more advantage: it's very hard to burn the sides of the hole with a hand powered tool. This can be important for instance when re-boring the hole for a pin in a piano pin block. If the wood burns during the boring the pin won't hold so going extremely slow and giving the wood time to cool is crucial to a good repair.
A very important advantage is that it's nearly impossible to get serious injury from manual drill. I played a lot with it as a child, doing some constructions and having a lot of fun. I don't think that it's safe to allow children to play with electric drill.
As a child and later manchild who has played with electric drills, I find it would be very difficult to injure yourself. You'd need to apply a lot of pressure to drill into yourself. You can somewhat safely touch the sides of a drill bit as it's spinning and it won't do anything.
Sore wrists though ... yeah I can see that. Those things vibrate a lot.
I guess you could cause the drill bit to fly out at high speed if you don't fasten it properly, but what kind of maniac drills with a wobbly drill bit?
True, but drill presses are actually quite dangerous. If they spin moderately fast (a few hundred rpm) and you drill into a steel object that is a few kilos and the drill grabs the piece it can throw the workpiece with lots of force if it isn't tied down well enough, and it takes a lot of tying down before it is 'well enough'.
Then there's the chance that the drill bit will shatter and bits come flying off at high speed. This can happen with a hand held power drill as well.
Hard metal, moderate vertical pressure, drill bit seizing deep in a hole. The remainder of the drill then has to absorb the energy in the gears and the motor, if the drill is hard enough it won't flex but it will break, and if you're unlucky it will break apart in many small pieces.
Eye protection is a minimum with any drill, long sleeves won't hurt. Setting things up so that if the bit shatters it is not going to have anything critical in the plane of rotation helps as well. I've had this happen only twice over 30 years but it's a pretty good surprise when it happens. Both times it was with large bits (20 mm and up), cutting oil and a deep hole in hard steel. That seems to be the perfect recipe. Even then the usual outcome of the bit seizing is the drill circuit protector kicking in before anything bad happens.
The large diameter means you'll be gearing down a lot in the drill so there will be a lot of torque available and as long as the bit is cutting you don't really notice that. I suspect that if you analyzed the problem in detail you'd find that some chip got wedged between the drill bit and the hole walls which would shorten the length of bit available to absorb the excess momentum.
Extracting the remainder of the drill from the hole can be quite an interesting challenge all by itself.
The other standard drill injury is nigh impossible too. You know, the one that starts out by thinking "I don't need to clamp this". And ends with spinning the workpiece around and catching yourself or your hand.
As an added added bonus, you also probably won't find yourself tempted to chuck a wire wheel in a hand drill, which eliminates several other ways to damage stuff or yourself.
I'm not sure I understand your comment. The chucks on hand drills are pretty universally hand tightened. It isn't as though there's a chuck key to tighten it down until the bit screams for mercy :-)
I should probably clarify that you can usually get away with drilling in reverse for a little bit, but if the bit is truly stuck and you start twisting the drill around, you're pretty likely to end up loosening the chuck. Obviously, grabbing by the chuck and trying to twist the bit in reverse is a sure-fire way to loosen the chuck.
Because the crank is geared up, you don't get much torque cranking in reverse, so once you get a bit stuck, it quickly becomes a pain to get it free.
Who is this idiot who keeps getting drill bits stuck, you ask? It's actually pretty easy with some bits. I have a set of DeWalt bits that cuts far too aggressively in softwood. Especially as you're exiting a hole, the cutting edges will feed though without fully clearing the hole, and the remaining wood will engage the flutes and pull the bit in like a screw. This usually also compresses the wood into the flutes as well, and just makes for a real mess.
With an electric drill, you can (if you don't care about the back side of the board) pull backwards on the drill and gun it, and let the edges of the flutes clear (tear out) the bits of wood engaging them. Not really an option with a hand drill.
What I usually do with a hand drill is to pull back and crank normally; the bit comes out easily, pulling back keeps it from going deeper, and it also removes the swarf in the hole cleanly.
Come to think of it - I do this with electric drills, too (and you pretty much have to with a drill press). So now I wonder:
Why is everybody switching their drill in reverse to back out the bit - this shouldn't be necessary!
The only time I've used reverse in an electric drill was when I was using it to drive (remove) screws (variable speed drill of course). I think for certain materials you have to run a standard bit in reverse to drill them properly (for some reason, I'm thinking glass, or ceramic tiles?)...
Also, you can't crank in reverse. That usually just loosens the chuck.
This may seem like a dumb question, since I've not used one of these before, but isn't that what the other gear on the shaft near the top (on those which have it) is for, to provide a reverse gear?
The top gear is just a "follower", to balance the forces on the body of the drill and keep load off the bearing in the centre. It doesn't drive anything. To drill backwards you .. turn the handle the other way.
The problem is the screw in the chuck getting unscrewed, because all the parts are on the same shaft.
I was told a story by a Canadian Forces mechanic about how he used a hand drill to do some underwater repairs on a float plane pontoon while in a remote area up North.
I'm not sure if hand powered tools are part of a standard repair kit for the Canadian military or if he was just being extra cautious in including some in his kit, but one can see how they could be useful when working in remote areas without power.
Hand tools are light, reliable, do not require external power and consume little space which make them better suited to remote environments than power tools.
Fiskars makes a hand drill. I bought one on the spur of the moment when I thought I'd be helping a friend's kid with a "build your own toy" project. That didn't happen, and I haven't actually tried it, yet.
Happy with most of their other stuff, though (trimming tools, hand saw, ...). I should have a look for it -- somewhere around here.
Sadly, Fiskars is one of those declining companies that are taking part in a race to the bottom with price and quality. Being from Finland (where Fiskars is from), it's often the default go-to brand for gardening equipment and similar. I bought a shovel that bent before I got any dirt moved with it. Recently I saw them sell products with "quick change" handles, selling expensive changeable handles to a product (some gardening tool) that should either come with a handle that lasts or an easy to replace wooden handle. Planned obsolescence and after market ripoff all the way.
Their scissors are great. Axes are alright. Although the problem with both is the gray, stainless steel they're made of (I jokingly call it "Fiskarsium"). It stays sharp-ish quite well but is really difficult to sharpen to razor sharp.
Old fashioned carbon steel would be much easier to sharpen but it rusts (if not oiled) and doesn't stay sharp as long. Perhaps it's just that modern tools are expected to do a mediocre job despite years of neglect.
Maybe I'm old fashioned when I am willing to do a few minutes of maintenance in order to get a tool that works well.
Fwiw. I bought a Swedish-made Hultafors axe with hand forged carbon steel blade and a wooden handle. You need to sharpen it regularly, oil it after use and might have to change the handle after a few years but boy does it chop wood. The downside is that I've had to explain to several people why I bought a Swedish axe and not a Fiskars.
I have a small, child's/sewing type Fiskars scissors from a number of years ago. Made in U.S.A. -- even then, they'd grown beyond Finland. It's held up quite well.
But I needed a larger model; the "generic" office scissors I had in that size didn't take long to become fairly useless. I happened across a Fiskars model while shopping for other stuff. It even has a non-stick coating -- might be useful when cutting tape, something that's been gumming up the generic. I took a chance and bought it. We'll see, but on the package: Made in China.
P.S. It's just been my observation with numerous brands and products, that when manufacture has moved to China, quality has declined.
those hand drills are still used very widely in jewelry making and other small-gauge metal work. making tiny holes in fragile, oddly shaped pieces with an electric hand drill, fordham rotary tool or small drill press is just risking damage to the work.
If you enjoyed this, you must watch the PBS documentary about Dick Proenneke, who built an amazing cabin in the Alaskan bush using hand tools, many of which he completed on-site.
He was alone out there and shot the footage himself, Les Stroud-style, decades before Les made his first episode of Survivorman:
Hand drills are great for when you need to drill pilot holes to install stuff in your dorm room or cheap apartment.
Drilling through metal is where they really fall flat on their face. It's hard to keep a reasonable feed rate if the tool isn't in great condition or the work it not positioned conveniently.
Accuracy also isn't that great, especially where a lot of pressure (metal) is needed or in awkward positions and that's with a power drill. A hand drill that you have to power would be even worse.
To drill mild steel (regular old steel, containing 0.05–0.25% carbon, used for most things you see made of steel, like structural steel and most car body components) you need to use high-speed steel[1] drill bits, and they need to be sharp. With the correct speed and feed rate drilling mild steel with a power drill is quite doable, up to about 12mm diameter hole in 12mm thick plate.
Regular stainless steels, 304 and 316 grades, are drilled with the same drill bits but slower, lower feed rates, and with constant cooling using a cutting fluid.
I've seen people try to drill steel with drill bits intended for timber, or blunt drill bits, this isn't going to work.
YouTube has good videos of how to sharpen drill bits. Worth learning, but mostly impractical on anything below about 3mm diameter (1/8th inch).
Pretty much all off consumer tooling is HSS. People just use way too much speed and cook them. It doesn't help that most aren't too sharp to begin with. Ever since I bought a drill bit sharpener (faster for the same quality as doing it by hand on a grinder) I've been using my hss tooling more.
For steel that just needs a hole and will be drilled with a hand (power) drill I've found that masonry bits are king. A small pilot keeps them from walking and the carbide tips hold an edge very well. For truck frame rivets in accessible locations it's faster and cleaner than a torch. The straight cutting edges are also very easy to grind.
Steel can be pretty difficult to drill with a hand drill, but with a sharp bit, a proper pilot divot, and some cutting fluid of some sort (old timers used bacon grease - still a great cutting fluid, even when it goes rancid).
The main key with metals (and heck, even with wood and certain plastics) is to have in place the pilot divot, so the bit doesn't wander. People seem to have the most trouble when they don't do this part first. Sharp drill bits are also very important. You usually only need a cutting fluid on steel.
Also - aluminum is almost as easy to drill as wood. Just add a good divot of course, and go for it. Some light 3-in-1 oil can serve as a mild cutting fluid. It isn't really needed, but it can be useful to keep the chips from flying everywhere (not as big a deal though when hand drilling).
Another easy to drill material is HDPE (cutting board plastic). Cuts and drills like soft wood, just don't get too aggressive with speed (especially when cutting - as it can heat up, melt, bind the blade, or self-weld behind the cut).
I have recently bought a brace type hand drill and I prefer it over my cordless drill. It is great not only for drilling, I also use it to drive all types of screws since it will accept any bit the powered version would. It provides more torque than a screwdriver and is more pleasant to operate than a socket wrench.
> It provides more torque than a screwdriver and is more pleasant to operate than a socket wrench.
Look up what a "speed wrench" is - it's basically a brace-type socket wrench, designed for working with sockets. Usually used for automotive repair work, but I imagine that anything with a bolt/nut could be attacked with it, provided there's clearance of course...
$9.90 each when you buy a case of 500? That's amazingly cheap.
Amusingly enough, the brand name has been conspicuously censored in all the images, but I can make out the German(!?) text "2-Gang Handbohrmaschine" and a website "westfalia.de" --- which makes me wonder if they're making fakes of https://www.westfalia.de/shops/werkzeug/handwerkzeuge/bohren... (which sell for almost 3x as much) or are actually the OEM.
Another hand-powered drilling tool not mentioned here is the pin vise, which works by means of a collar sliding up and down a spiraled shaft. They are used for drilling small, precise holes, using drill bits that would be easily broken by the greater torque of a power drill.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PalmercarpenterA.jpg