When I started building things 28 years ago or so, I had very little in the way of tools, or money to buy them. I remember when taking a hundred dollars and buying a tool required a long discussion between my wife and I. The first raised panel cabinet doors I ever made where on a cheap $100.00 table saw I got from sears. It’s really amazing what you can do with very little, especially when you have more time than money. But that is probably the topic for another day…
One of the tools I had in those early days was a Craftsman circular saw that my wife’s Grandpa gave me. He was still water skiing at 80 years old but I think he felt I might make better use of this tool than he would at this point in our lives. I think he thought I was a decent enough kid to be marrying his granddaughter… I regularly attended a Catholic church and I built stuff… that’s probably about as good as he could have hoped for… Except for maybe a guy who could afford to buy his own tools…
I used this for many years. It was a simple saw, a wing nut for the depth adjustment and another knob for the angle adjustment… Very little plastic. It was heavy, to be sure, but solid and, except for the repair of a severed electrical cord occasionally and a new blade, it was as dependable a tool as a guy could ever need.
Eventually it got dropped a few too many times and the base was no longer flat and square with the blade. I replaced it with a Porter Cable but I know if I needed this saw, I could dig it out of the shed and it would still run strong as the day it was built.
…Stuff that works…
It seems odd drawing machinery, but often the light and shadows make for an interesting story.
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| I say “circular saw” but we all know them as “Skillsaws”. “Skill” being another brand of saw, I thought it might be inappropriate to say “Craftsman Skillsaw”. |