Topic summary
Brace and bit
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Brace (tool).
Handle
The U-shaped handle is a crank. It gives the brace much greater torque than other kinds of hand-powered drills. A brace and bit can be used to drill wider and deeper holes than can a geared hand-powered drill. The cost of the greater torque is lower rotational speed; it is easy for a geared hand drill to achieve a rotational speed of several hundred revolutions per minute, while it would require considerable effort to achieve even 100 rpm with a brace.