Edmond Michel was a French-born American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and inventor. He is credited with inventing the handheld

circular saw A circular saw or a buzz saw, is a power-saw using a toothed or Abrasive saw, abrasive disk (mathematics), disc or blade to cut different materials using a rotary motion spinning around an Arbor (tool), arbor. A hole saw and ring saw also use ...

Tabitha Babbitt Sarah "Tabitha" Babbitt (December 9, 1779 - December 10, 1853) was a Shaker credited as a tool maker and inventor. Inventions attributed to her by the Shakers include the circular saw in lumber milling, an improved spinning wheel head, and a pr ...

is credited with inventing the first circular saw for use in a

saw mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

in 1813. He was also the co-founder of

Skil Ski-like protein is a protein that in humans is encoded by the SKIL gene. Interactions SKIL interacts with SKI protein, Mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 3 and Mothers against decapentaplegic homolog 2. Protein Family SKIL belongs to t ...

Personal life

Born in France, Michel immigrated to the United States sometime during the early 20th century. Initially living in

Houma, Louisiana Houma ( ) is the largest city in and the parish seat of Terrebonne Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is also the largest principal city of the Houma– Bayou Cane– Thibodaux metropolitan statistical area. The city's governme ...

, he would later move to

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

Career

Prior to the popularization of

power tools A power tool is a tool that is actuated by an additional power source and mechanism other than the solely manual labor used with hand tools. The most common types of power tools use electric motors. Internal combustion engines and compressed air ...

, agricultural tasks that involved cutting through thick materials such as

sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fib ...

had to be done with the use of

machetes A machete (; ) is a broad blade used either as an agricultural implement similar to an axe, or in combat like a long-bladed knife. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the Spanish language, the word is possibly a dimin ...

, which often required tedious labor. In 1921, After he had watched sugar farmers cut through thick cane stalks with them, Michel sought to develop a motorized version of the machete. Initially, Michel mounted a mixer motor onto a standard machete, as well as a

worm wheel A worm drive is a gear arrangement in which a worm (which is a gear in the form of a screw) meshes with a worm wheel (which is similar in appearance to a spur gear). Its main purpose is to translate the motion of two perpendicular axes or to t ...

gearbox and a 2-inch circular blade. This invention, while working fairly effectively, required an external generator, making it impractical for use. In creating this device, Michel effectively created an early example of a motorized

worm drive A worm drive is a gear arrangement in which a worm (which is a gear in the form of a screw) meshes with a worm wheel (which is similar in appearance to a spur gear). Its main purpose is to translate the motion of two perpendicular axes or to t ...

. Michel then tried again, using a piece of wood with a notch carved into it. In the notch, he mounted the same mechanism as the mechanical reaper, but with a 6-inch blade. This was the first electric circular saw. Michel saw drawing

After a New Orleans newspaper ran an article about Michel's invention, he was approached by Joseph W. Sullivan. The two became business partners and moved to Chicago. In January 1924, they were granted a patent for the

hand saw In woodworking and carpentry, hand saws, also known as "panel saws", are used to cut pieces of wood into different shapes. This is usually done in order to Woodworking joints, join the pieces together and carve a wooden object. They operate by ...

, with the Michel Electric Hand Saw Company being established in June of that year. Despite attracting immediate interest from contractors despite numerous mechanical problems, the two began production of the tool. The name of the company was renamed to Skil in 1926, after Sullivan's wife commented on the skill necessary to use one. Michel had reportedly been the person to coin the term " Skilsaw", which would become the trademarked name for the saws produced by the company. Just before the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, Michel withdrew from the company to work on new inventions. After leaving Skil, Michel invested his share of the money inventing and developing the "Larmloc", the first keypad-based lock. This invention failed to pan out, and only one working prototype was ever made.

Notes

References

External links

History of Skil
{{DEFAULTSORT:Michel, Edmond Year of birth missing Year of death missing 20th-century American inventors 20th-century French inventors French emigrants to the United States People from New Orleans