Herb Lapp asks:

> I have been collecting old drill bits and found two long square tanged
twist
> drills.  Guess they were used to put line cable in.  Both are Cleveland
> drill with pats # 2859645.

Since our resident patent expert Steve Reynolds is away from the list for a
couple of weeks, I'll take this one...

This patent was granted to Joseph V. Emmons of Shaker Heights, Ohio, on
11/11/1958, and assigned to the Cleveland Twist Drill Company.  There were
two major claims in the patent, being the special point used on the drill,
and a special shape for the flutes to facilitate chip clearance.  It was
supposed to be able to bore deeper and cleaner holes, and resist wandering.

This info is very easy to look up at the USPTO web site, www.uspto.gov.  All
you need is a TIFF viewer for your browser (AlternaTiff is a very good
freeware one), and you can see the patent papers for any patent.

ralph