THE SKILSAW SUPER SAWSQUATCH

I regularly saw wood, metal and every so often concrete, so I was delighted to see Skilsaw’s introduction this month of a mammoth circular saw called the Super Sawsquatch, a power tool that can slice a 150 mm beam in a single pass. To accomplish this, Skilsaw equipped the saw with a 400 mm blade and a 15 A motor powering a wormgear drivetrain. The machine is like a small, handheld sawmill.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the term worm gear, a brief explanation: circular saws come in two forms. A sidewinder uses minimal gearing, often a spur gear on a shaft off the motor. This is the most common form of circular saw. Then there’s the worm gear, which consists of a steel worm and a corresponding gear that it meshes with. There’s nothing wrong with sidewinders, especially in heavy-duty tools. They have a high power-to-weight ratio and they are easy to handle. But the worm-gear arrangement produces a highly durable and stall-resistant, high-torque saw. It’s ideally suited for tough cuts or the relentless number of cuts that occur when you frame a subdivision house or cut form lumber for concrete used in highways and bridges.

Skilsaw chose its venerable Model 77 worm-gear saw as the basis for the Super Sawsquatch. Introduced in the 1930s, the 77 is time-tested. It ploughs through lumber in admirably hasty fashion, but one thing it cannot do is get through 90 x 90 or thicker lumber in a single pass. Which is a bit of a problem. These thick materials are everywhere today: in engineered beams, massive pressure-treated posts that support decks, and the truly big timbers used in dock building. We’re gonna need a bigger saw.

The Super Sawsquatch is it. It weighs approximately 14 kg and has a rigid magnesium base and an electric blade brake, otherwise who knows how long you’d have to wait for a blade that diameter to spin to a halt; probably longer than it took for you to cut through the beam. – RB

This enormous new saw can cut through 150 mm beams in a single pass.