In 1937, Edward Sterba perfected the Model E and built the first Model 77 with a 7 + 1⁄ 4-inch (180 mm) blade, considered the 'workhorse on building sites'. In 1928, Skil released the Model E Skilsaw, the first generation saw with a worm drive. In 1926, the Skil brand name was born after Michel left the company to pursue other ventures, and Sullivan changed the company name to Skilsaw, Inc.Īfter surviving the Great Depression, Skil continued making improvements to its saw. Michel went to the new Atlantic City's Million Dollar Boardwalk to demonstrate the new tools, where the first portable electric saw was purchased for $160 by the Piers’ developer.

Īfter forming the company, six production models were made at $1000 each. After deciding to go into business together, Michel and Sullivan moved to Chicago and opened the Michel Electric Handsaw Co. Īfter reading about Michel’s new invention, Joseph Sullivan, a Minneapolis land developer, set out to find the New Orleans inventor. In 1923, Michel created a motorized machete, which had a 6-inch (150 mm) saw-blade mounted on carved wooden frame and powered with a motor taken from a malted milk mixer – the first electric handsaw. After observing the painstaking labor the workers went through, Michel began experimenting with how to mechanize the Machete. In the early 1920s, Edmond Michel, a French immigrant in New Orleans with a penchant for tinkering and inventing, watched a group of farmers hack away at sugar cane with large machetes. Skil products include circular saws, cordless drill/drivers, cordless screw drivers, cordless tackers, cordless sealant guns, belt sanders, random orbital sanders, multi-sanders, angle grinders, hammers, drills, mixers, jig saws, lasers and measuring tools, reciprocating saws, routers, and planers. In an example of a genericized trademark, portable circular saws are often still called Skilsaws or Skil saws. Now referred to as “the saw that built America,” the Model 77 set the industry standard for handheld worm-drive circular saws which remains in production almost unchanged today. SKIL can trace its heritage to the invention of the circular saw by Edmond Michel in 1924, which led to the development of the SKILSAW circular saw Model 77 in 1937. The company now focuses more on the do-it-yourself consumer, but at one time made professional construction-grade power tools, which are now being sold under their subsidiary, SKILSAW. It is a subsidiary of Chervon, a company based in Nanjing, China. SKIL Power Tools is a brand of electric power tools and accessories located in Naperville, Illinois, United States.

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