New SkilSaw Mag77 Worm Drive: Fixing what isn't broken?

so for the last 40 years I've been feeding my family with a skill saw and that's not hyperbole I mean most of the time the paychecks were directly connected to the lumber that a skill saw was cutting so this is a new one I bought this Nate and I picked this up just a couple days ago um just specifically to see what they've done to it I mean they have improved it now I'm skeptical that there's any significant improvement we're gonna open it up in a few minutes and we'll see what it looks like and see what it feels like and and then we'll give you some more input after we've used it but in the meantime here's what I here's what I think is interesting to me so this may be the original skill saw now clearly it's not there may have been a model or two ahead of it but that's actually skill saw okay and it probably weighs 25 pounds in fact it weighs about as much as each two together but when this showed up on the job you better believe this was a huge improvement and they were darn glad to have it and then I wish I had here the first saw that I had it would have gone right in this face because it was aluminum everywhere including the pistol grip but it was shaped exactly like this and it lasted pretty good now it needed to be double insulated because it would it would tingle yeah once in a while but it had about the same power and it was a little heavier but it was a heck of a tool so then skill saw morphed away from the you know bringing the aluminum all the way back into the pistol grip and they showed up with plastic now this marketed by craftsman obviously made by skill you know you can you can criticize me if you want but that's a skill saw for probably 20 years or so that was a standard size and weight and heft and the table remained virtually unchanged and what a tool what a tool it was no none of us imagined it would ever change I don't know when it was that I first saw the mag 77 show up on jobs I think maybe I was still in Las Vegas so that would have been before 1994 but I'm not sure that but the thing that I noticed was wait a minute that saw is red instead of gray and I thought well how stupid is that I mean why would you change from battleship gray to red and then I realized whoa wait they say it's lighter and then I picked it up and oh it is lighter and so my skepticism vanished and I realized why would I have even considered being put off or critical of advancing technology in my construction tool because when I got my hand on it all of a sudden all of my critical thinking sort of clarified and I loved it mag 77 has been great this is probably the fourth one of these mag 70 maybe the third one of these mag 77 that I've had they've never let me down but I've let them down they never wear out but they do break and they do get dropped and the table does Bend and you know the housing does crack those things happen but that's always operator error I've had no reason to think it could be improved at all but apparently they think it can be improved if the quality of this one remains as good as this one I'm gonna have no reason to second-guess whether or not this is gonna continue to be my go-to tool so let's open this thing up [Music] so the first thing I want to say is I bought this less than 200 bucks that's a bargain it's mine it did not come to me from skill it came to me from a tool store the rest of what I want to tell you is that I'm kind of processing what they've done here and what part of this is an improvement what part of this looks like a light a certain eventual liability and what part of it is just a zero and let me remind you this this thing has been one of my top 10 all-time favorite tools this is a great tool and so it it makes me shiver just a little bit any time somebody starts messing something that really doesn't need to be fixed but anyway overall my first impression is it's a win there's only two or three things that kind of make me curl my lip and the first one is that they've put the saw wrench in a little nifty little slot in the table that's great for a homeowner if this lives most of its life under your workbench in the garage you're always going to know where the wrench is but if you're a pro if you're slamming if you're putting in long days and you're rolling out at daylight and rolling up at dark one of those dark mornings or one of those dark nights you're gonna drop this into the toolbox or jerk it out or you know it's gonna you're gonna pick it up and this will be gone I don't think this is worth the effort the other thing that concerns me and I have no way of knowing this but it concerns me that dissertate this table this magnesium table is clearly cast this one I think was formed perhaps forged I I don't know but when this one drops it bends we'll see if this one bends when it drops if it's hard enough to take it or if it cracks I'm not gonna know that until it's lived through a few hard days I'm bugged by the obvious branding I mean skill saw skill saw skill saw skill saw stay true magnesium I mean they've they've spent a lot of effort on appearance and chrome will not get you home okay I just it just tools and pretty don't go in the same same sentence for me ease but I understand that it's one way to create a visual distinctions you know you're getting one and not the other so alright whatever I would have stopped with just putting the big black bold skill saw in there but I'm not their marketing department now the list of things that appear to be very positive it is strong I mean the first thing is the tilt on the table you go to 45 degrees just like this one and then you pull that little catch open and you can go to 53 degrees that's a fan the wrench just dropped out but that's handy that's not just handy that that's gonna be a lifesaver or at least a time-saver someday so a good job skill I mean that's a that's a win and the scale is sturdy and the indications the calibrations are sharp and there you don't have to estimate as much as you had to on the old scale in fact let me point that out that's worth seeing this calibration goes up in increments of five so you just have to guess for eighteen and a half degrees and you know the other standard pitch degree measurements this thing is called out in individual degrees and the indicator is fine enough that I think it's accurate the indents indicating the cut line when you're at 90 and when you're at 45 are now not only on the outside as here but marked and numbered on the inside whereas here there's only mark that's good I mean that that's you can focus your eyes in there it reminds you where you're at and what you're doing that was worth doing here's the money shot they put the skyhook on the saw from the factory that's a win I just that makes me smile and whatever else you may be giving up with any of the other sort of brainstorms that's a plus for the last 30 years we've been having either buyer make skyhooks this was the pinnacle I mean that guy right there was the one that's not been obviated by this so way to go boys here's a neutral this is neither Plus nor - it offends me as a professional because I think who needs to have different mark by wood thickness and to buy lumber thickness but for a homeowner that's probably a handy thing so probably worth while these are different plastics I mean this is glossy this is a matte finish so what this is warm and a little a little more tactile a little easier to keep a hold of and doesn't suck the heat out of my hand like that one does I think that's a plus in a cold climate in the wintertime I I would say that's a win so I'm gonna go out on a limb here and without a scales on sight and not bothering to take the blade off of this I'm gonna say this is a little lighter it's definitely a little lighter that's an that is an undeniable plus anytime you can lighten up a tool that you've got to swing around like a racquetball racquet all day long I mean that that feels good this feels good but this feels a little better so if you want to know that if you want an extra if you want to x-ray this thing and see every connection and analyze every piece of material and every compromise between this and those and this there's a Canadian that does tool reviews and when he reviews him he died sex him he lays them out on the table like the biology class bullfrog and you can see every connection and every sinew and every joint you watch what he says about this saw and you're gonna know you're gonna know what makes it tick next summer the end of the summer we're gonna do another review about what my experience with this was and I'm gonna have a lot more confidence in what I have to say to you then so this is the first time I've done any kind of a tool review on a tool that I haven't used for years I don't like it because I don't really know how this works but by the time we finish the spec house I'm going to know this is gonna be I'll use them both but I'll probably use I'm gonna try to use this one probably 70% of the time that I'm working on that house so when that's done I'm gonna have a much more informed perspective my perspective on every tool is you know I don't care too much what's under the skin what I care about is how the thing works how much work I get done with it at the end of the day and if it takes the abuse that I dish out here's what I know this tool is a 10 I've got miles on this and I can tell you without any equivocation this is a dynamite tool after looking this thing over a little bit reluctantly I've got to say maybe they've done it again I don't know for sure but I can tell you this I'm less skeptical of the new Meg 77 now that I've got it in my hand and I've looked it over then I wasn't it was sitting there in the box so I was throwing the box away and I noticed that they included a blade cool and that's convenient because I'm not sure that I mentioned that one of the changes fairly significant that they made was they move the locking button I think that's a better location maybe the caller's a little smaller a little more room to get the blade in seems to be that's a plus so this is about the first blade that I've ever put on a saw where it can be read on a warm drive from the outside skill saw must have been continuing to think about marketing oh yeah they move the button there it is that's gonna take some getting used to you know I guess that's better I'd certainly different probably can get used to it yeah so that's better for if you have it sitting on the bench all right I guess that's a that's a neutral I mean whether it's they're there anyway we got a blade on there we'll use it

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 426,019

Rating: 4.9402499 out of 5

Keywords: skil, saw, skilsaw, worm, drive, wormdrive, circular, powertool, tool, tools, reveiw, unboxing, mag 77, magnesium, carpenter, carpentry, carbide, blade, essential, craftsman, makita, dewalt, ryobi, ridgid, millwaukee, framing, pro, tips, unbox, box

Id: BqnrbEX13WE

Length: 12min 8sec (728 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 05 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/wood2010]

Those are the only 2 channels I need.

[u/thatguy52]

HOoooo LIIIIII Shit.....,(?)!!!! Two of my favs coming together. It’s kinda sorta maybe probably perhaps may as well Xmas. Thank u jeebus!

[u/flyingcaveman]

Skilsaw had a 6 1/4 " saw before they had the mag 77. Much lighter and just as useful as the standard size. The 8 1/4" one they made didn't get you any benefit really except being heavier and using more expensive sawblades.