I own sixty-eight circular saws, and that’s utter lunacy
As you may have surmised, I have amassed a rather large collection of power tools and machinery. Lots of people collect stuff, and tools are no exception- many a suburban dad has puffed out his chest while holding forth on how many big-box store plastic dinguses festoon his garage. However, people tend to give you funny looks when the tools are old, and there is a sliding scale of just how unhinged you the collector are perceived as being. F’rinstance, When I tell someone I own four floor sanders, They generally are surprised. If I cop to the fact I have eighteen belt sanders ( worm drive ones; the belt-driven ones don’t count ), eyebrows go up and my wife gets a worried glance.
Should I tell them that I own nearly seventy circular saws, and have no intentions of parting with any of them, some folks will actually start backing away.
Thing is, one of the biggest advantages of having such an assortment ( aside from the fact that there’s precious little in the way of materials that I can’t readily saw up ) is the simple fact that, if you have enough fossils, you begin to see how dinosaurs became chickens.
When I was a small boy, I would spend hours in my grandparents’ sunroom, devouring old Popular Mechanics and paying close attention to the Bantam Knowledge through Color paperbacks, most of which were about animals ( we were too poor for Zoo Books, I’m sorry to say ). I’m reminded of those books every time I explain to someone how the different series, eras, or designs are grouped together- I've always considered myself the Carl Linnaeus of power tools.
That said, I’ve sorted out the history and development of Porter Cable’s entire product lineup, so you don’t have to. It’s time to laugh and learn as I sketch out the various species of circular saw family, starting with the eldest branch, the K-series saws.
The original K-8 was the originator of the basic circular saw layout used today ( unless you're Skil), being a top-handled saw with the blade at right angles to the long axis of the motor. This accomplished two things: for one, it lent the saw a balance that allowed for one-handed use, and two, it got around existing patents. The K-8 is gearless, the arbor being the end of the armature; cutting power depended less on torque than on rim speed. While this worked well enough, it should be noted the K-9 did not use direct drive, having been designed with gear reduction and being the first true "sidewinder" saw. I consider the K-8 to be a bit of an evolutionary dead-end ( but a great first effort, considering Art Emmons was all of twenty-five when he designed it), though the short-lived Kwik-saw shares some characteristics.
My family starts with what I consider the first generation saws of the '30s and early '40s, ( the K-9, K-65, K-66, K-88, K-88a, K-10, and K-12 ). As they were almost comically overbuilt, they tended to survive the passage of time well, and tool Valhalla houses several of this merry band, including these fine gentlemen.
Left to right:
K-66 , K-10, K-88a, and K-88
These saws are the high water mark for build quality, in my opinion, having been meant for unremitting hard labor ( modern saws build houses; these immortals built neighborhoods). One of Porter-Cable's cleverest ideas was to add a force cup to the gearbox, allowing the user to add grease to the gears with a twist of the cap, critical in the days of bronze jackshaft gears when these saws roamed the earth. This lubrication feature would go on to grace nearly every Porter-Cable/Rockwell circular saw until the advent of the 347/743 and 345 Sawboss saws of the late '90s, but the original lineup was designed with two of these cups, the second being a tiny version mounted above the rear armature bearing. The K-10 cost 155.00 in 1941, or darn near 2,800 dollars in today's coin, which is why most specimens ( like my careworn old pal in the photo) have been used well past the point of failure for any saw that isn't of this hearty lineage. First generations can be recognized in the wild by the “coffee can” motor housing,
a design that allows you to sit the saw up on end for blade changes, although all but the K-66 also need the upper guard removed to change blades ( for decades, any P.C. saw could be purchased with an extended arbor and a Huther Brothers dado set, but the K-66 was the only one to come that way standard. It sounds odd until you remember that most joinery cut these days with a router was done by saw in the days when you only had the one power tool).
These saws also continued the use of the safety guard, which may seem dangerous today in the era of sheet goods but made a good deal more sense when the main material was dimensional lumber.
The wealth of user experience led the company to make some amendments to the design, lightening the saw a bit by thinner castings and a more rounded motor housing, as well as a larger depth slide knob. It may seem hardly worth it on paper, but I don’t have to tell anyone who’s framed a house how important even a one-pound weight saving is when faced with a repetitive task- there’s a reason hammers are marketed by the ounce. These saws are what I think of as the second generation, though they are still K-series saws. There are five basic flavors: the K-75, K-88c, BK-10, BK-12, and coming into the picture in 1950, the K-89.
Here are my examples. Left to right , the heroically proportioned BK-10, my ERA radial arm attachment mounted K-88c, a lightly used K-89 and the K-75, first available September 1st of 1940.
These saws are essentially sleeker versions of their forefathers, having most of the virtues of the earlier lineup ( save the whole sit-it-on-end feature), while being less expensive to build. Greasing of the rear bearing was still possible, done in this case by the removal of a finely threaded plug in the end of the motor housing; not as elegant, but still handy. This feature would appear on most later saws until the Rockwell years.
Join us next time, when we discuss the third generation and the debut of the long enduring 508.
