The Rise and Fall of Skil, the Company That Invented the Circular Saw and Forgot How to Build One
In 1924, a Chicago inventor named Edmond Michel filed a patent for a portable saw with a motor mounted vertically and angled gears transferring power directly to the blade. He called it a worm-drive circular saw. Within two decades, his design had become the standard tool of every American framer, every Navy shipyard, every wartime aircraft factory.
Skilsaw became the word carpenters used for the tool itself, regardless of who made it. The brand became the category.
Then the brands Skil had taught how to compete started overtaking it. Milwaukee. DeWalt. Makita. One by one, every professional contractor who had grown up swearing by Skil moved on. The factories moved overseas. The product line drifted into the homeowner aisle. The brand that invented the worm-drive saw is now sold at Lowe's, owned by a Chinese conglomerate, marketed to weekend hobbyists.
This is the rise and fall of Skil.
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Iron Ledger documents the rise and fall of America's greatest toolmakers — the brands that built the industrial age, and the boardrooms that dismantled them. New stories every week.
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