Skil Corporation

SKIL Power Tools is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chervon Ltd. (sic) and is a leader in portable electric power tools and accessories serving the do-it-yourself consumer and professional construction markets.

SKIL can trace its heritage to the invention of the circular saw by Edmond Michele in 1924, which led to the development of the SKILSAW circular saw Model 77 in 1937. 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. In an example of a genericized trademark, portable circular saws are often still called Skilsaws or Skil saws.

Skil products include circular saws, cordless drill/drivers, cordless screw drivers, cordless tackers, cordless sealant guns, belt sanders, random orbit sanders, multi-sanders, angle grinders, hammers, drills, mixers, jig saws, lasers and measuring tools, reciprocating saws, routers, and planers.

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. After observing the painstaking labor the workers went through, Michel began experimenting with how to mechanize the Machete. In 1923, Michel created a motorized machete, which had a 6 in. saw-blade mounted on carved wooden frame and powered with a motor taken from malted milk mixer – the first electric handsaw.

After reading about Michel’s new invention, Joseph Sullivan, a Minneapolis land developer, set out to find the New Orleans inventor. After deciding to go into business together, Michel and Sullivan moved to Chicago and opened the Michel Electric Handsaw Co. in 1924.

After forming the company, six production models were made at $1000 each. Michel went to the new Atlantic City's Million Dollar Boardwalk to demonstrate the new tools, where the first portable electric “Skilsaw” was purchased for $160 by the Piers’ developer.

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.

After surviving the Great Depression, Skil continued making improvements to its saw. During the 1930s, Skil released the Model E Skilsaw, the first generation saw with a worm drive. In 1937, Edward Sterba perfected the Model E and built the first Model 77 with a 7 ¼” blade, considered the “workhorse on building sites.” The model 77 celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2012.

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Wikipedia