Though we take them for granted now, screw guns or cordless drills, are a relatively new innovation. In fact, you don’t have to go back more than about three decades to a time when the hand drill was an indispensable tool of carpentry. These tools were crafted with beautiful ornamentation as well as clever features like a hollow handle for storing extra drill bits. Now chiefly collectors items, we used some of these augers, which date from between 1650 and 1860, while participating in a traditional barn raising in Bath, Pennsylvania.