Memorial Day has come and gone, for better or worse. The droves of partiers who came up here to north Michigan rivaled those morons at Lake of the Ozarks , etc. in their denial of reality.
With a little less than 5% of the world’s population, we have around 25% of the world’s reported deaths from COVID-19. That math doesn’t look good, despite the dubious veracity of China’s, Russia’s, and Brazil’s numbers. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope so. I fear not.
Shit, this pandemic hasn’t even stopped bad actors in law enforcement from going about business as usual, as evidenced by what’s happening in Minneapolis, Louisville, and elsewhere right now.
Seems like there’s no good news anywhere these days. Sigh. To the shop, then.
OK, this is a 1930’s jigsaw called a Cutawl. It was made by the International Register Co, based in Chicago. Full disclosure: I saw this tool restored by a YouTuber who goes by Hand Tool Rescue. He did his a couple of years back; I found his video maybe two months ago. Check him out, he’s good. After seeing it, my life’s all-consuming mission became to acquire one of these.
Off to eBay, checking every so often to see what’s there. Most of the sellers, as usual, want too much. These usually go for $150 to $300 + shipping (another forty-fifty bucks or so), often with broken/missing parts. Up to $500 if it has the original wood box. Patience, grasshopper.
Then one night a few weeks ago, this! A new listing looking more or less intact, for a relative bargain Buy It Now price. Roughly $150 total with shipping. Seller says it runs. OK, I’m in!
These aren’t necessarily jigsaws in the technical sense. The correct term, I think, is scrollsaw. The head rotates 360 degrees, and the blade is offset such that it turns to follow the direction the saw is moving without having to turn the whole saw like the jigsaws we’re all familiar with. You guide it via the round handles on each side of the cutting blade. It can cut precise sharp-angle corners, and with the right blades, you can cut through up to 1/16” thick mild steel. Pretty cool.
Or, as the Museum of the Cutawl — Yes, of course there is a Museum of the Cutawl, puts it:
You HAVE to love a machine that: "...is moved over the material being cut by means of a reciprocating tool connected to a plunger for reciprocation therewith and for swinging movement thereabout, the tool being eccentric to the plunger so as normally to trail the latter in the movement of the machine over the work."
OK, then.
Cutawl survives to this day, now owned by the J.F. Helmold Co, still in the Chicago area. It looks like they still offer a specialized version of this tool, mainly used in the die-making industry.
I got lucky with this one. There are no missing or obviously broken parts other than the belt and light bulb, and the motor did run as the seller stated, without sending 110 volts coursing through my body. Good omen.
I started with the motor. It was made by the Black and Decker Electric Tool Co. in Kent, Ohio. Cutawl must have contracted with B&D for their motors.
It came off easy, only a few screws and you’re done. I cut all the wiring off, not keeping any of that. The blue tape keeps track of the hot wire. I removed the switch and lamp and set them aside for later attention.
Then I popped open the casing and took a look. Oh boy.
The casing was packed with what appeared to be very fine sawdust. Can’t have that. So I pulled the rotor and cleaned it and the end cap up. Next, the windings. First I shop-vac’d out the sawdust. Then I went to pull the windings out and give everything a good scrub-down.
That didn’t quite happen. Wires from the windings attach to the brush terminals. You can kinda-sorta see it in the photo at right. And they’re permanently attached as far as I can tell, meaning I can’t figure out a way to get it out without cutting the wires. I hate cutting wires.
So I went back to the YouTube video to see how he removed it. It just shows him sliding the thing out, as easy as you please.
Well, that was helpful.
I left it in place and cleaned up around it as best I could. Cutting those wires and trying to solder them back together way down in that blind hole is a recipe for electrical calamity. I really hate cutting wires.
Next day. I learned something new about paint removal! I was using a new-for-me degreaser called Krud Kutter and noticed that some of the paint was coming off, too. Hmm — I took a wire brush to it and it worked. A lot easier than paint stripper.
Actually, I learned two new things about paint removal. I soak the rusty parts in a product called Evaporust, usually overnight. Great stuff. I found that, with this paint at least, the soaking also softens up the paint and it then comes off reasonably easy with a wire wheel. Stripping paint sucks, and any way to make it easier is a win.
The brushes were toast, but they still make them in this size, ¼ inch. Four bucks each at the local hardware store. That was easy.
The motor and electrics being more or less done for now, time to go at the rest of it. I was real lucky here. Those bakelite guide knobs above are often badly worn, damaged, or missing altogether. Aside from some paint spatter, these are in excellent shape. I couldn’t get the one on the right to come off. I tried for two days, dumping about half a can of WD-40 and other assorted solvents into it (and my benchtop). That old bakelite is brittle stuff. I didn’t want to risk breaking it, so I ultimately left it alone and cleaned/polished it in place. The YouTuber had to fabricate new ones using auto body filler. I am a fortunate man, indeed.
Next, I removed the Cutawl nameplate to get at the guts. The benchtop is starting to accumulate quite a few very small bits and pieces by now. Better round them up before they wander off.
Taking the rest of it apart was uneventful. No frozen screws or sheared bolts. I didn’t break anything. There are no lost parts that I’m aware of. For now, I’ll call them quantum parts, neither lost nor found until I look for them.
The guy on YouTube said to not even attempt removing that wheel to the right. Evidently it’s quite fragile. When someone who’s been there gives advice, it’s a good idea to take it. I didn’t break this piece down any more than this.
Tool-geek alert! This even came with a little box of cutting blades. Mostly the chisel-type blades, but there is one toothed saw blade for cutting metal. Awesome.
The photo below is another look at some of the cleaned-up parts before I began painting.
Next day. Now we’re getting somewhere. The paint is dry and it’s starting to go back together. It’s a lot easier to work with when everything is all cleaned up. Cleaner, too.
All right! Here’s the finished project. What a great tool. I love the whole retro look; they sure don’t make them with this kind of all-in engineering any more. On the other hand, this wasn’t retro eighty-odd years ago — It was state-of-the art technology of its day. In some ways, I guess it still is.
A side story. In 1917, International Register invented the mechanism that enabled US WWI fighter planes to fire machine gun rounds between the rotating propeller blades without hitting them. Think about it — You’re shooting a machine gun through a very rapidly spinning prop. With said prop being what’s keeping you in the air and alive. These guys were crazy. My solution would have been “Um, why not just move the machine gun?”
A close-up of the nameplate. And the lawn’s greening up! At least the parts that are not presently underwater. Mid-Michigan saw some extreme flooding recently. So many people wiped out, no flood insurance.. We only caught part of it, which was quite enough. Our lake’s level is up some eight to ten inches over the last couple weeks, never seen it higher in 30 years. Some docks are threatening to float away from their moorings. If this is the worst we get, we’ll all be lucky.
I’m pretty much done with this one. It still needs a belt and light. They’re on order.
So Mrs. R. says, “Hey, this cookbook’s been broken for years. Let’s see you fix that, mister engineer.”
Challenge accepted. The three-ring binder metal spine had broken away from its mountings. The cover is basically cardboard, and it was pretty much shredded where the original rivets once held it in place.
I have a tube of something called Flex-Glue, and this stuff will stick any two objects together permanently. You might have seen the cheesy ads for it on TV, but they’re true. A product that really does work as advertised. Imagine that.
Next day, after removing the clamps, Mrs. R. was so pleased with the result that she cooked up some tasty chicken tacos for dinner to celebrate. Now that’s a good deal.
Stay safe, everyone!