Pretty much everyone is producing one of these now, and here’s Skil’s version: the 2 amp model 1400. Not surprisingly, they chose to go corded, keeping the price down and the functionality high. (I love the fact that Skil, by the way, still offers corded drills, and that most of the big box stores choose Skil as the token corded drill they carry in-store. If you don’t own a corded drill, get one today. You know, like I suggested you do back in 2009.)
Specs are similar to others you’ll see: 12,000-22,000 OPM (oscillations per minute) with a nice variable speed controller. It’s pretty heavy at 2.75 lbs, but do you really care for a corded tool?
I’m not enough of a remodeling guy to know exactly how everyone uses these, but I’ve read literally thousands of product spec sheets. This one screams to me “targeted at the one-or-two project guy who wants the right and functional tool but isn’t going to spend hundreds of dollars on it.” And by “one-or-two project guy” I don’t mean a guy who wants the tool to only last through one or two projects, but rather the guy who’s not remodeling every day — the guy who has a project in mind when he heads to the store. That’s very much Skil’s market, of course, and in my experience they serve it pretty well. Sean, for example, still has his cheap-ass $25 Skil sidewinder circ saw — the same one you’ve seen featured here in TM as well as in the pages of Popular Science. (No, really. A picture of *me* hasn’t appeared in PopSci. But Sean’s Skilsaw’s mug has.) We used Skil jigsaws to build the plywood dino a few years back, and volunteers helped us beat the crap out of them. The jigsaws still work, and I still have one kicking around.
Street pricing for this thing runs around $90, with deals as low as $75 if you shop hard. That may seem high, considering that you can find the Bosch PS50 — the upscale, li-ion version of this — for around $75, too. But remember that that’s the PS50 in tool only configuration. You’ll need batteries and a charger. The full PS50 kit’ll set you back about $160. Plus, you have to keep it charged — or if you have a long job, you’ll need enough batteries for continuous use.
Model 1400 2.0 Amp Oscillating Multi-Tasker [Skil]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]