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The two men decided to go into business together, moving to Chicago and setting up the Michel Electric Handsaw Co. What happened next, as they say, is history.Ī Minneapolis land developer named Joseph Sullivan (pictured) read about the circular saw and set out to find Michel.
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The invention attracted a great deal of attention, including that of a local New Orleans newspaper, which ran an article on the local inventor and his new time-saving device. Voila! Michel had created the world’s first electric handsaw! round saw-blade on a carved wooden frame and powering it with a motor taken from a malted milk mixer. In 1923, after some creative thinking, testing, and tweaking, he developed a type of motorized machete by mounting a 6 in. The labor seemed so difficult and intensive that Michel wondered if there was a way to make the daunting task a whole lot easier. The Frenchman, who immigrated to the United States in the early 20 th century, watched in awe one day as a group of farmers hacked away at thick sugar cane stalks with large machetes. While interesting, it is not yet really collectible due to the sheer numbers of these saw that where produced.įind great deals for Vintage Skilsaw Model 77 Worm Drive Saw 1 Owner Mag 7 1/4' Magnesium SKIL.Although not a great deal is known today about the life of Edmond Michel, his penchant for tinkering and inventing set the stage in the early 1920s for development of one of the longest-lasting and most highly respected brands in the history of tools. If your looking for a collectible saw I would either suggest a Model E or for a more modern one, one of the 250 saws that Skil offered as a limited edition, that was painted in an American flag style color scheme. If your really into classic Skil you will also want one of their model 100 'Surfboard' planers. It has enough power in my opinion, to still be quite useful. When I purchased this saw its gearcase was filled with grease, not oil, and included in the tools case was a tube of Skil branded grease. After going back and forth with Skils customer service who insisted that none of their model 77s ran grease, I tried oil. Not having an oil level hole to gauge capacity as this tools only access is through a access hole on top of the tool, I took a guess and just covered the end of the worm drive gear. So I drained the oil out and regreased it. It continues to run well, although I can't say that I run this saw often enough to comment on its durability.
#Skilsaw model 77 history manual
I have been unable to find an owners manual or any other literature on this saw and would appreciate any info any one could shed on this tool. This is what I believe to be an first generation model 77 Skilsaw. I haven't really had much luck tracking the history of Skils early tools. There is a lot of info on the history of the company itself, but very little on the progression of tool models through the years. Skils own website provides a nice overview of their history. Skils original model saw was called the Michel Electric Hand Saw Which later came to be called the Model E. Production of this tool was started in 1928 in, I believe, Chicago.