Rescued from the dark catacombs of servers long dead, the Pocket Sawzall returns for your destructive amusement!
The Pocket Sawzall is a device roughly the size and shape of a small electric knife, with one important distinction: It uses standard reciprocating saw blades and has the same amount of power as a normal cordless sawzall.
Designed for easy carry and to fit in tight spaces, the Pocket Sawzall is perfect for those household chores like trimming large tree branches, cutting off tailpipes, or opening up a new doorway! It's rechargable, lightweight, and fun for the whole family!-- justaguy, May 17 2005 Pocket Sawzall? http://hand-tools.h...jab-saw-640836.aspx [half, May 17 2005] Similar form factor to this, but using the bigger blades? http://www.ewbc.de/...85_10483/18185.html [half, May 17 2005] Any thoughts on how you'll achieve that much power in such a small package?-- half, May 17 2005 Yeah... nuclear batteries and supercapacitors. (well, you might as well get used to it, now that we have, albeit only in theory, this option...)-- david_scothern, May 17 2005 Ever taken apart a power drill? DeWalt motors are pretty compact, and you don't need that much run time.-- justaguy, May 17 2005 Yes, I have. I just haven't seen one that I'd call pocket sized that I could say had reasonable power. To get the size of a small electric knife, I'm visualizing those cheesy electric screwdrivers. I was sure you had something more powerful than that in mind.
I was hoping for something exciting like a super-duper-teensy-weensy linear motor to obviate the need for a space consuming gear box wrapped up in a housing with molded-in polymer batteries to help keep the size compact.
One downside to a tiny yet powerful reciprocating saw might be the low mass. Even if it's only cutting on the pull stroke, there's still plenty of force pushed back on the operator on the push stroke. Without the higher mass to dampen the "recoil", the thing might be a bit tough to operate.-- half, May 17 2005 I keep reading the idea title as "Patrick Swazall".-- calum, May 17 2005 [half] You may be right. It may be crazy. I was envisioning something along the lines of the motor that powers my 18v drill (which, I believe, is the same as my normal-sized recip. saw) and could conceivably be shoehorned into a much smaller casing. The biggest difference would be the size of the battery, I think. And while a nanobot-staffed miniature nuclear reactor might be the best option here, I thought it simpler to just reduce run time.
This is one of those "really needs to be illustrated" ideas, unfortunately... I think it could work well enough for practical purposes, and the specific design I'm picturing for the housing would keep kickback manageable.-- justaguy, May 17 2005 (Oh, kickback, yeah that's the word I was searching for.)-- half, May 17 2005 Hey, how about a minature IC engine, as for a small model aircraft? Could it develop sufficient power, be geared down through a worm drive and avoid frying the user's hand with the waste heat?-- david_scothern, May 17 2005 [half] Yes, that's it exactly! I envisioned a slightly different case (and of course the standard sawzall blades shown in the first link), but that's pretty much the idea.-- justaguy, May 17 2005 If you're going for an IC engine, just use a single piston connected directly to the sawblade. Steam would do just as well.-- BunsenHoneydew, Aug 11 2007 random, halfbakery