Skilsaw worm gear and Makita Hypoid saw

[deema]

I look with envy at these saws that are only available over the pond. I'm really tempted to import one from Amazon. Can anyone think of a reason why they haven't made it to the UK, is there some H&S rule they don't comply with for instance?

 

[JSW]

No idea, but you might be interested in AvE's latest teardown of the Skilsaw 77, there's also a link at the end to the Makita Hypoid, assuming you haven't already watched, that is ...

[Eta] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6fJ8xFDYSM&t=0s

 

[deema]

Thanks for the link, I'd already seen the two reviews by AvE, I like his feed, his utube videos always make me smile. It was these that first started my interest In he saws. They look to be well engineered......I liked his tear down of the Festool saw which was not as complimentary.

 

[flh801978]

I bought a bosch one whilst in California on a train trip ...i ordered it from amazon and had it delivered to my next hotel then whilst at the hotel looked across the road ( at Monterey) there was a massive Home Depot (B&Q) they had all the saws and lots of nice stuff that we don't see here
My suitcases were very heavy on the way back.
Anyway the saws great very powerful and quiet and slim as the motor is in line with the blade
Only slight fly in the ointment is the blades use a diamond shaped hole which I haven't seen here but i stocked up on blades while i was there at fantastically low prices
Why we don't have these type here i have no idea
Ian

 

[dickm]

Haven't seen one in years, but the old Black and Decker (when they were based in Slough) Ripsnorter was that style, so they must have been imported at some stage. There was still a working wheelwright in the village near where I was born until the 1970s, and a Ripsnorter was the only power tool he possessed.
Even today up here in North East Scotland "a ripsnorter" is the generic term used by older guys for any hand-held circular saw.

 

[inkyblue]

+1 for the skillsaw 77. I've been wondering for years why we don't get them over here. I got one from the States over 10 years and still going strong, a really powerfull saw that handles well despite the weight. You won't be disappointed if you take the plunge on one. Make sure you stock up on a couple of diamond knockout blades

 

[Myfordman]

Whilst we are on a "why is it different in USA" theme, why is it that US circular saws invariably have the motor on the right of the blade when viewed in the direction of the cut and Uk/EU/Japanese makes have the motor on the left.
As majority of us are right handed, the US type seem so much easier to use, holding and guiding the saw with your strongest hand. standing to the left of the cut and seeing the line with ease.
Obviously we can use sawboards to remove the uncertainty and just push on through the cut but i don't always have one to hand.
With so many imported saw available in the US now they have both types readily available. Any of our readers across the pond care to comment, express preferences etc?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

+ 1 I've always thought the motor on the left illogical. That said, I think the design of many of them appalling - I had a DeWalt that I felt guilty selling on.

 

[dickm]

This is getting way off topic (!) but can't agree about the left-hand/right-hand motor thing. Have tried the 18V deWalt saws which seem to come in both flavours and the ones with the motor on the right just feel so.o.o.o awkward.

 

[MWood]

Just to throw my tuppence into the mix since i'm also weighing up importing either the Skilsaw 'Lightweight' SPT 77 or the Makita Hypoid saw.
Both of which i might add are still competitively priced against UK bought saws even when you include shipping and import duties!

I am really leaning towards the Skilsaw over the Makita, All metal body, Huge bronze thrust bearing and gear set... Something that's just going to last and shake off the occasional drop whilst on site and the only modern power tool i can even think of that is marketed "to Last"!
My only real concern is being stuck with import only blades with them being that diamond spindle! At least with the Makita i will be able to pick up blades that will fit off the shelf at my local supplier!

Not gospel, but I am fairly sure that for HSE purposes it would be possible to class them as a grinder rather than circular saw, which is what they essentially are?
On that note these would be considerably safer than a standard grinder to use as the blade is completely enclosed rather than with a conventional grinder guard :wink:

:Slowly creeping off topic now:
I already own several Snorter's* including the Makita DHS680Z Left blade and the smaller DSC550RMJ right blade. The left blade is much more suitable for us righties as it allows you to sight down the blade without contorting yourself into some less than ideal working posture just to see where you are cutting.
Now of course there is no need to do this when using a guide, which leads me to another strange point!
Whilst using a straightedge with the saw i still prefer to use the left bade saw and use a straight edge on the left side of the base because it is closest the blade!
(Even further off topic if anyone is thinking about it! I have the Track saw attachment for the 680Z and a 3m track which was insanely expensive and is quite honestly a complete piece of turd... so much so that its easier, faster and more accurate to use a 6" strip of 18mm ply with the factory cut edge as the guide, a couple of quick clamps and just measure off the 37mm from edge of baseplate to blade!) I mean i just really can't explain in words how useless it really is and how stupidly expensive it is! I have used the track only 6 times and has always been kept flat and never been knocked or damaged and the track horrendously cupped during those first and last 6 cuts.
Myself and several other people i know have complained to makita and they have never responded! Methinks this is a common issue but they won't acknowledge it!

However if cutting free hand i tend to use the smaller DSC550 with right blade! This has nothing to do with which side the blade is on but more because of the geometry of the saw itself. The smaller saw has a much more elongated shape and the handle is slung considerably further back and lower down behind the blade, rather than it being over the top of the blade. This gives unbelievably better control for freehand cutting!
And i believe this also to be true for the likes of the Skilsaw and Hypoid saw!

Thats not to say that i 'can't' cut freehand with the other saw, but it takes considerably more effort and concentration than the other. Which over the course of an hour is the difference between 3 extra sheets of board cut up! (I know someone is thinking Whoopty doo, 3 whole sheets)
On a job where time is money 3 sheets an hour is half a pallet of ply over an 8hr working day!

Anyway i digress, but my point is speed and accuracy are equally important on site, so too is a tool that will last, and last, and last!

Lets face it a lot of modern tools are just not built to last anymore! Almost all of my Makita stock has been back under warranty at least once and at least half of them have been back under warranty multiple times!
The biggest 18v Makita 'heavy duty' combi drill with the metal chuck has been back 4 times under warranty and once more out of warranty (and if it packs up again it's going in the skip).
Speed controller (warranty), Clutch (warranty + out of warranty), Gearbox (warranty), Brush mounting plastic bezel thing (once warranty + several times i've replaced)
Now you might think that i'm rough as hell with my tools but i'm not! Most people that have a loan of my tools can't believe they are site tools because of how good their condition is! So that leaves 2 possibilities, either its i was super unlucky and got a lot of dodgy Friday afternoon tools from Makita, or they just arent as well made as I expect them to be!

Does anyone remember the old Black and Decker grey and beige all metal body 2 speed power drill (without getting it out i think its 264### or ###264?)
I still have the complete kit that has the orbital sander, circular saw and grinder/polisher attachments, Its older than i am and is still as good as the day it was made! (i think there was also a hedge cutter bar that fitted it as well)
I also have tucked away at work an old 110v Skilsaw Classic (UK not import) which is perhaps a little newer than the B&D, but this still comes out and gets used when one of the other 'newer' saws goes away for repair again! (and of course when HSE aren't around as it takes what feels like an hour for the blade to stop :shock: )


* Ripsnorter seems to have been abbreviated to just 'Snorter' in the NE of Scotland, however Ripsnorter was still occasionally used back home in the Midlands as a way of expressing enthusiasm for an object in the same way as using 'bobbydazzler'

 

[MWood]

Sorry got carried away there...
Hopefully someone from that side of the pond will correct me?

But my first guess would be no electric brake??

Hence why i think getting it OKed as a grinder may be the best way forward if its for work use!

 

[Mark A]

You would like to import a US saw, but you're not sure whether HSE will approve of it?

I own an older, Chicago-built Skil HD77 worm drive (phenomenal saw!) but before finding it by chance on another woodworking forum I did consider importing one from Amazon.com. I asked a local tool shop if they would be willing to carry out repairs in the future, but apparently they can't touch imports as they're not CE Marked?

I don't know if that's true, but it may be worth finding out.

Regarding brakes: I doubt that is an issue because most circular saws are unbraked. Similarly, riving knives are often missing from saws so a worm drive's lack of one shouldn't be a problem.

I don't know why the likes of Bosch Dewalt and Makita refuse to introduce worm drives over here? They're the smoothest and most comfortable saw I've used. Maybe the safest too - the motor's power combined with a narrow blade means they rarely bind in the cut.


Mark

 

[Eric The Viking]

Sorry to persist with the thread drift but... is the DHS680Z'S 3m rail the same as the one for the SP6000K? If so, your criticisms surprise me: I have one and I agree it is fragile, but it was around 1/2 the price of the Festool equivalent. I find mine far better than using connectors.

On the Skill saw - CE marking is to do with selling products not repairing them. Someone doesn't want your business...

 

[MWood]

You would like to import a US saw, but you're not sure whether HSE will approve of it?

Regarding brakes: I doubt that is an issue because most circular saws are unbraked. Similarly, riving knives are often missing from saws so a worm drive's lack of one shouldn't be a problem.

Mark

Without meaning to be blasé i don't really care if they do or do not approve of the saw. For me personally it will see just as much use out of work as it would at work, but it would just make life so much easier at work!
I was merely offering the OP what could be an alternate route 'so to speak' with the worm drive essentially being a modified angle grinder (should he need it).
When you look at the very earliest worm drive Skilsaw's you can see they are quite literally a modified 10" grinder with a circular saw blade fitted and a base plate strapped on in what looks like a very adhoc manner!

It really looks to be the case that some bright spark over there just slapped on a wood blade to their grinder possibly to save money on tools, and some even brighter spark happened to walk past and watch the guy and thought "WTF... hmmm, Actually this guy might just be onto something here! :idea: "

You own one (i'm jealous atm) but you can see just from looking at it that it is built like a tank, it will out last every other power tool i do or will ever own.
IMHO From a safety aspect i can't really see anything that would be more dangerous than any other mains powered hand held circular saw available in the UK. From AvE's tear downs the only aspect that jumps out is the actual trigger switch which only appeared to be marked for use in US and CAN! Perhaps it is quite literally that switch is not deemed suitably insulated by the powers that be in Brussels [-( :duno:

I think the most dangerous part of that saw or any other (to quote AvE) is the '220lb Gorilla at the wheel' and tbh i think i've been using these types of tools for long enough now and have enough going on between my ears to be capable of operating it correctly and safely!

Sorry to persist with the thread drift but... is the DHS680Z 'S 3m rail the same as the one for the SP6000K? If so, your criticisms surprise me: I have one and I agree it is fragile, but it was around 1/2 the price of the Festool equivalent. I find mine far better than using connectors.

On the Skill saw - CE marking is to do with selling products not repairing them. Someone doesn't want your business...

Yes, it's exactly the same guide rail.
And yes mine is a 2 piece track, however i did buy 2 jointing bars and used one in both the top and bottom channel which made it really solid at the joint.
Yep scary delicate if i were to use it for site work, i bought it for use in the shop and it has never left!

However on reflection i don't think it is actually 3m, I believe it might only be 2.8m as it always feels too short to cut either 4' or 8' with!

Im not sure on the cost basis compared to the Festool... Perhaps if you were buying the Makita plunge saw kit it is, but not buying the track as an add on for my saw it wasn't!
The Festool complete kit is around £500.
DHS680Z - £265 body only (release day when i bought it)
Bought the track set a while later - 2x Tracks £140 + 2x jointing bars £50 + Adapter plate £45 (got the bag free though! woohoo)
£495 total for me (ok thats a seriously bad price ), if i wanted a plunge only saw then yes it would have been much better value going with the Makita kit or even the Festool for the £5 difference!
But i didn't have the requirement for such a specific saw at the time of purchase, with hindsight i should have bought it!

If you have had no issues then i can only assume that it is the adapter plate which has for some reason caused the track to cup!
I quite honestly think that it was a very badly thought out piece with the usual flare of mass producing a 1 size fits all as the booklet for the adapter lists about 12 different models of saw that it adapts!
It would have been much better (for the actual cost of the adapter) to produce a saw specific adapter that clipped directly and rigidly to the base plate of the saw instead of having flimsy metal straps that just fit into the original saw guide slots!
Ok so it might have meant loosing up to 5mm of the max cut depth... But then it's designed for sheet work so why on earth would you be trying to cut a full 57mm with a track setup?
2 sheets of 18mm (36mm) is probably gonna be the most you would want to cut in one go! Personally i probably wouldn't cut more than 2 sheets of 12mm as 2 sheets of 18mm would be a bit rough on a cordless saw!



On a different note, with the whole Brexit thing going on and us really starting to get cosy with our Yankee brethren, looks like we might soon be able to get some real 'built to last' man tools anyway ccasion5:

 

[No skills]

@ Eric - seen a few cupped mak rails on Internet travels, I was going to get the long makita one for my ts55 (based on price and comments on here) but after seeing some of them I'll pony up for the green one.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I wouldn't bother - they are almost identical, and the price difference is enormous. I was watching oner of Peter Millard's videos earlier, and I note his 3m rail has blue "slippery bits" on it, which made me wonder - after all the Makita logo is just a sticky label

Yes, it's exactly the same guide rail.
And yes mine is a 2 piece track, however i did buy 2 jointing bars and used one in both the top and bottom channel which made it really solid at the joint.
Yep scary delicate if i were to use it for site work, i bought it for use in the shop and it has never left!

Several things about that:

1. It's not the same: was talking about the proper 3m (one long piece) guide rail for the Makita. The SP6000 comes with one or two 1.4m rails, depending on the kit you buy. So, joined, that's 2.8m. I have used mine that way for 8' sheets, and it's not nice. I regard the joiners and rail kit as last resort - you can, but it's not for day-to-day work.

2. The proper 3m rail is around 1/2 the cost of the Festool one (they do even longer ones to special order, I believe!). Having compared the two brands side-by-side (1.4m lengths, in the Axminster shop), I don't think there's any real difference in rigidity. The only significant difference is right at the back edge, and both have roughly the same web height there (but different cross sections).

3. They can all dish - they're only thin aluminium extrusions after all - but if the stock is supported properly (i.e. flat) there's no reason for this to happen. My shorter rails get abused and are dished slightly ( :-( ), but it's not a real nuisance as I clamp them for anything critical, using proper rail clamps. On an MFT setup it wouldn't matter anyway.

4. Your saw wasn't designed for those rails. I was scratching my head looking at pictures on-line, as I couldn't see how its baseplate would fit, and it now seems it needs an adaptor of some sort. That's bound to be a compromise at many different levels, and you won't get anything like the repeatable accuracy the proper system gives, be it Makita's, Festool's or anyone else's.

I can understand your frustration though I think you'll struggle to improve matters without getting the proper saw for the rails (and a 3m one if you want to break up 8' boards easily). I wouldn't take my 3m rail to site, either. I was using it in the house to cut on the bedroom floor when we were refurbishing it, and I was nervous because the old floors sag (would that dish the rail?). It sagged, but didn't dish permanently. It's obvious they can be very easily damaged, especially the long ones. The best way to store them that I've seen is hung up from the top (in a scenery workshop), but few of us have 3m or more ceiling height!

E.

 

[MWood]

@ Eric - seen a few cupped mak rails on Internet travels, I was going to get the long makita one for my ts55 (based on price and comments on here) but after seeing some of them I'll pony up for the green one.

Perhaps its not my adapter then?

dont suppose that you noticed if they were with a standard saw and adapter or with the plunge saw?

 

[Rhyolith]

Haven't seen one in years, but the old Black and Decker (when they were based in Slough) Ripsnorter was that style, so they must have been imported at some stage. There was still a working wheelwright in the village near where I was born until the 1970s, and a Ripsnorter was the only power tool he possessed.
Even today up here in North East Scotland "a ripsnorter" is the generic term used by older guys for any hand-held circular saw.

Just finished cleaning one up that I picked up at the car boot a few weeks back. Is it the same as the one you refer to?

Black & Decker 7" Portable Electric Saw by Rhyolith, on Flickr
Black & Decker 7" Portable Electric Saw by Rhyolith, on Flickr

This one claims to be made in England, at the slough works dickm mentions in fact. So they were here! The look of it makes me think 1950s which would fit with it being an EU law that put pay to them in the UK... I think (need to look up when we joined the EU).

Black & Decker 7" Portable Electric Saw by Rhyolith, on Flickr

Can't comment on its performance as its need more work to be useable... well at least for me to feel safe using it! Don't suppose anyone knows somewhere (someone) who could knows about electrics in these kind of things? Nowhere I have ask so far is willing to go near power tools :/

 

[Mark A]

Rhyolith - I own your Ripsnorter's big brother with a 9" blade.

Compared to my 7.1/4" Skil wormdrive it's quite a bit larger, and heavier.

I restored my B&D a few years ago. Took it apart, cleaned off 70 years of crud, replaced bearings and wired a new flex. Runs smoothly, though the gear box seems to have developed a leak, which I've only just noticed :-(

I remember the oil seals being an uncommon imperial size which my local bearing shop didn't stock. I bought the closest they had and hoped for the best. I'll probably just drain the gearbox, wipe off the drips and refill when I next use it.
I bought some SAE140 from Smith and Allen, which is apparently a good substitute for Skil's official worm drive oil.


Mark


Two pictures to compare sizes:

 

[Rhyolith]

I thought mine was heavy! That must weigh a ton!

I looks like the makers plate on yours is silver metal? Mine is brass, which I think means its older... though I could well be wrong there. I think the silver metal plates came in at some point either late in the 1950s or 1960s, but this is mostly speculation from what old B&D stuff I have found and been able to date (older ones do seem to have brass plates). (I accidentally buffed off the red paint on the winged logo when doing mine up, classic careless mistake #-o ).

What do you mean by "Wired a new flex"?

The bearings look good on mine. The only worn part i have noticed is the gear thats driven by the worm. How worn is hard to tell without seeing an unworn one.

Do you know what the threaded hole on the top from handle is for? I have yet to see a picture of one of these where it is being used for anything.