Here,s the deal...I,m going to buy a battery operated sawzall to cut roofs off of cars that are abandoned,scrapped etc.Since most of the cars I come across are no where,s near an outlet I need to know what would be the BEST brand to buy. I need it to be 18 volts with several back up batteries.Makita? DeWalt? What brand should I buy that won,t let me down 50 miles from home? Gonna get several Merc lids as well as 54 53 Chevy 2 doors. Might as well get the door tops as well. Thanks for any info!
I would be interested in this info too. There's an abanded 51 merc 2 door thats rotting in the woods.......
I'm not a roof chopper but I know tools. I would look at a Milwaukee or Ingersal Rand. I think Milwaukee invented the Sawzall.
I use a Dewalt almost daily and it's bomb proof. I would recomend one in a heartbeat. You probably all ready know that multiple batteries are the key to not finishing a job though, so buy spares and charge them well before leaving.
i have a ryobi. 1 battery got me through a set of rear quarters on a 52 chev probably about 18 inches from the tailight through the trunk supports rear pan and right above the bumper on both sides it still had some life left but not to much multiple batters yes yes yes lots of inner structure you dont think about on these cars in the roof. good blades key!! i use milwauke torch blades pricy but they last .
Seems like there was a thread about this not too long ago......a month maybe Try a search--it had some good info(testimonials)
Here's a link to one model. They make a couple different ones. http://www.milwaukeeconnect.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_27_40028_-1_729701_192148_192137
go with the dewalt 18volt. mine has never let me down and been really abused. they also make 18volt impact gun,angle grinder. look at what other tools will use the same battery
Hey RATMOTOR, Whichever saw you get,be sure to use good Bi-Metal blades! That's the whole saw in the quality of the blade.Once you start cutting,don't stop til you get to the end of the part you're working at that time. Blade temper is a funny thing? I have an electric DeWault that's been a great saw for over 12 years. Good luck with your projects!
at work,we use Milwaukee sawzalls all day. They are the best when it comes to a corded sawzall.....but when it comes time for cordless.....DeWalt 18 volt all day long.
I sell vintage car parts as a sideline and at a swap meet. There are always gonna be fucked up chops....Check out videos by RatmotorMike on Youtube and you will see the potential donors.
i don't know what else you do for 'fun' [i.e. home repairs etc], but i bought a ryobi 18v kit from home-depot a few years ago for around $200, it has a 'sawzall', drill, 5 1/4" circular saw, small chain saw, light, vac., 'sabre saw' two batt's and a charger, all in a big bag with wheels on it. handy as hell for almost anything, and the batt's seem to last for quite awhile. [ just thinking with a set up like this, the cost may be more appealing as the kit can be used for alot of different things]
Here's a thought from one of my 4 X 4 friends! Something that is popular amoungst the offroad crowd is to modify 12-18V tools to work off their Jeep or Cab trucks with clip-on power leads to run off their own vehicles battery. Same scenario, stuck out in the woods with no power source. You might be able in some instances to get your own vehicle close enough to the car you want to cut the top off of to make it reach. Then you have unlimited time to run a sawzall or grinder or any tool without having to worry about battery life. Just a thought, might also give you a cheaper alterantive than having to buy extra batteries as well....
Not much. It's been there at least 30 years. Looks like maybe it was hit in the drivers rear corner and knocked over the bank and they just left it there. Somebody yanked the flatty out and it layed there for years and then it was gone. She's sunk down in the ground and the floor pan is completely gone. People that know about it have picked its bones through the years. The cool thing about it is you could drive by every day and not know it was down there, you could even look down the bank and you wouldn't see it. I want to cut the roof off and the fronts of each quarter panels for the guys doing 4 door to 2 door conversions.
I have an 18volt DeWalt. Works great, blade swaps are easy, no tools needed, good speed variablity, great power. I always bring an extra battery when I am away from home using it. Just in case. In fact a friend is coming over shortly to borrow it to cut the pedal set out of a car in a junkyard..
Dewalt.......and get your self a couple extra batteries and two chargers. Nothing is more dissapointing then running out of juice in the middle of a good shop session. I love mine.
Forget all those battery powered saws that run down quickly and have much less power than the usual 110 Volt saw. Get an $80 power inverter and use a real hand held POWER saw. I use a common 7-1/4" diam metal cutting wheel (I carry 3 or 4 spares in my toolbox) with my 110 volt Skil saw, and run it off my car battery with one of those 800 watt Power Inverters you can find on ebay (be very carefull of the brand- a few do not last more than one or two uses, some last for years) Coleman and Cobra seem good. For some reason, Coleman won't run the transformer in our microwave on the boat, but it does run the fridge and power tools. Cobra seems to run everything including the microwave. Beware of the off-brands, some look like a crap shoot. With an 800 watt or 1,000 watt inverter running on your car battery you can run the full-power 110Volt power tools and you won't have to settle for any low-power rechargeable versions. Actually, buying an inverter for the powerful tools you already have is cheaper than buying all new battery powered tools anyway. EBAY-- http://cgi.ebay.com/COLEMAN-1000-Wa...ryZ85805QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem That link doesn't look like it worked, so here is the item number just to give an idea of what I am referring to.. 330207182165 I use these (Cobra + Coleman) to run the fridge and microwave on the boat, power the xmas lights on our dune buggys in the Christmas parade, run power drills and saws when far away from electricity, and even kept a small room-size AC running during a summer power outage. Buy a couple for emergencies. When places like the St Louis area went a few WEEKS without power in the middle of last winter (COLD!), any one with a Gas furnace could have used one of these to run the furnace blower just like normal to keep their house toasty warm while their neighbors shivered under blankets. Ask me how I know. P.S. I have to add this- there are crooked sellers using the PEAK wattage numbers as selling points for tricking you into buying a smaller converter than you think you are getting. For instance- a 400 watt converter (too small for most bigger tools) is often being sold as an 800 watt simply because that is the advertised SURGE number. The surge number only tells you it can start an electric motor by providing a short term surge. The CONTINUOUS WATTS (usually about 1/2 of surge) are what you judge by if you want to run it for more than a couple seconds. If they don't tell you the CONTINUOUS number and the SURGE number, that usually means they are using the Surge number to fool you into thinking it is bigger than it really is. Read the info carefully. 800 continuous and 1500 surge will run most of the normal power tools including saws and fairly large drills. I have also used them to run average fridges and small AC's 500 continuous/ 800 surge will run small drills, but possibly not a big 1/2" drill under heavy load.
I was just about to post the same thing dare said. A battery powered is nice, but as long as you can get close with a car, the inverter is the trick.
And when I can't get close, I use a two wheel "hand truck" to bring my saw, car battery, and a few tools. Sometimes in the summer I even have a $10 car radiator fan zip tied to the hand cart to keep me cool when I have to remove things from inside a greenhouse-hot car. It's easier to pull the small cart thru the weeds than carry the usual tools by hand. Just pack light. I also bring a can of bug killer for any nests, and a jug of water to stop any spark-fires. A small Wal-Mart plastic box tied to the two wheeler can hold just about all you need to bring. It's much easier than toting a tool box.
If using a power inverter, you could bring a whole arsenal out with you I guess. For instance, would that power a tool such as a 1/2" electric impact?
Here is one of mine. I just grab a battery box from the boat and bring the tools. This is the one that runs the microwave or small fridge on the pontoon boat. I use it for drills and saws too. I have powered a 1/2 drill with a 800 or 1000 inverter. I have powered 3/8 drills with a 500 watt for short projects. Just keep in mind that if you run a 300 watt flood light on a 500 watt inverter, you won't have enough left to power a drill. Again- buy an inverter judging by the lower CONTINUOUS WATTAGE rating, and never by the bigger SURGE rating or you won't have one big enough for the job. If the thing dies on you eventually, either the battery ran down below 10 volts or the inverter got warm. Either way, it will reset itself with no harm done. Usually they last me for several hours of near constant work if I don't have a nearby car to jumper from.... If you don't open the fridge a lot, a decent battery can keep a full size one going for more than a whole day, or a small AC for 5-6 hours between jumpers from a car. If you ever decorate your car for a Christmas Lights' Parade, or light your campsite, this won't be noisey like the irritating loud generators that others use.
DeWalt is the way to go I cut the roof off from a fleetline that I used on my 53 210 and the DeWalt worked great. My saw is about 5 years old and it took 3 batterys to get thru it but I cut mine across the firewall and below the rear windows then thru the trunk. Good luck
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