Somewhere around 1977 or ’78 I was working with my father John Van Lieu on an extensive renovation of a pair of old cranberry shacks that had been moved to Baxter Road in Sconset. Part of the job involved converting an adjacent garage into a bedroom. It was a curious structure with sheet metal sides creased into a facsimile of clapboard. It needed window openings and I needed a Sawzall to make them. I don’t know why I went to Hyannis to get it, maybe nobody stocked them on island as Marine Home Center does today. I was recently married and I remember joking about the trip off serving as a honeymoon, although I didn’t notice anyone else laughing.
The Milwaukee Sawzall was then as it is now the industry standard for reciprocating saws. At that time it was a 2-speed affair with a lock button to keep the power on without holding down the trigger, a feature I miss today in spite of my eternal gratitude for the care that OSHA shows for my well-being. It was the perfect tool for cutting through the metal siding and anything else I applied it to and has done a great deal for me in the decades since. When one considers the nature of the work they are called to do, it’s remarkable that these saws serve so well. Every task is rough, dirty and abusive, yet they are always up to them. In the time I have owned this one, I have replaced the rubber boot once, the switch once and the blade clamp once.
There’s still time to read the instructions.
I have recently acquired Milwaukee’s M18 Fuel™ Lithium-Ion 6-Tool Combo Kit which includes the latest incarnation of the Sawzall. I was immediately impressed with the heft of the saw. It felt like a very serious tool for the rough work that would be demanded of it. I’ve done some demo with it, and cut some framing stock to see how it would fare and it fares well! It cuts quickly with less rpm drop under load than my corded model and is just, well, so convenient! Going up a ladder and over a roof without a 50 or 100′ cord would be worth some sacrifice in performance, but I’m convinced that I get better performance, not less. My old 2-speed model still works as well as it did in the 70s, and has outlasted the house it first worked on, as the cranberry shacks on Baxter Road were demolished last year to be replaced by a large gambrel. I don’t suppose I’ll be using it as much as I did now that I have the cordless one within reach, but I’ll keep it.
“What was it like in the old days, Grandpa?”
In the video below, the M18 Fuel™ Sawzall cuts through a pressure-treated 4×4 in half the time as the old 2-speed model. The longer stroke and higher speed simply pull more saw teeth through the workpiece in a given amount of time. (Thanks, Barry!)
Milwaukee’s new generation of cordless tools are a pleasure to work with and make me wonder how we ever got along without. As a young man once exclaimed on a job: “I can’t believe you used to nail the whole house together by hand!”
-dvl
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