Bit Extensions

Bit extensions are used to extend the reach of augers in a brace.  They allow the carpenter to drill through much thicker wood or to carry a hole through a wider space.  They were made by various manufacturers.  The one’s in my collection are from Stanley, Millers Falls, and perhaps Greenlee.

Greenlee Tools was started in Crawford County, Pennsylvania by Robert and Ralph Greenlee, the twin sons of a local farmer and inventor who had patented a line of wooden barrel-making machines in the early 1800’s.  The Pennsylvania oil started flowing shortly thereafter, and the Greenlees were in a position to make money supplying the barrels this required.  The brothers moved to Chicago in 1899, where Greenlee Brothers & Co. was officially formed.  The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 left their factory unscathed, and increased the demand for their woodworking machinery to help in reconstruction.  The went on to develop a hollow chisel mortiser for making square mortises quickly, a portable “railroad tie machining car” to produce ties for the exploding railway development after the US Civil War, and the first ever “self-feed power rip saw.”  When there own factory did burn down in 1897, the moved their plant to a more convenient location in Rockford, Illinois in 1903.  In 1927, a separate firm, Greenlee Tool Company, was established to carry on the small tools business while the machine tools remained with Greenlee Brothers & Company.  It became part of Textron Inc. in 1986.

The 1930 patent drawing is for a Greenlee No. 900.