Skil SPT77WML-01 Review

Our Skil SPT77WML-01 Experience

The Skil SPT77WML-01 is a professional-grade tool with the features and build quality to prove it. We love its magnesium housing that provides exceptional durability and helps dissipate heat to keep the saw cool during long cuts. This saw was great for long hours out on the job, and worked perfectly for heavy construction tasks like long rip cuts where power and torque were a necessity. While it's a bit heavy to use and made our muscles tired hauling it around, the extra weight also helped us to have better control when making cuts.

Our Analysis and Test Results

Bevel

The angle (bevel) measurements on the Skil SPT77WML-01 are very clearly marked in black, providing great contrast against the gray magnesium base of the saw. The angle indication scale ranges from 0 to 53 degrees, with a tick mark for every degree and a number indicator every 5 degrees, which makes it highly customizable. We feel like it's a bit of a miss that this saw doesn't have an indicator for 22 1/2 degrees, and we wish the angle adjustment indicator were a bit more precise. We appreciate the useful positive stop at 45 degrees and the easy-to-use, quick-release lever for making angle adjustments. All told, it's well-designed and a great fit for those who want the most out of their tools and expect highly accurate, easily repeatable angled cuts.

Adjusting the blade depth on the Skil SPT77WML-01 feels smooth and consistent, and uses a similar high-quality quick-release lever to the angle adjustment. The channel the saw base slides on is marked with common wood thicknesses, making it easy and convenient to set the blade depth. This was one of the few blade-depth indicators we found truly useful among all the saws we tested. The sight line on this saw is excellent for both visibility and accuracy, cutting dead-on at 0 and 45-degree angles.

Cross Cuts

The Skil SPT77WML-01 is powerful enough to cut faster than many people might feel comfortable cutting. We cut through a 12"x6" header beam at an average of just over 2 seconds, making it one of the fastest saws we tested. Even at its maximum cut depth of 2 1/4-inches, it cuts through wood effortlessly. We like this saw for all-day cutting jobs, especially when making deep cuts in thick materials.

All of that beastly power comes with the trade-off of weight. The Skil SPT77WML-01 weighs in at 11.6 pounds, making it fairly heavy, though not the heaviest saw we've had our hands on. Given its weight, we appreciate that this saw has a rafter hook, and although it is heavy, we feel most people will grow accustomed to the weight and value its cutting capability over a few extra pounds.

Ripping

Ripping is where many saws we test struggle, but the Skil SPT77WML-01 seemed to hardly notice as we effortlessly ripped through the lumber with impressive control and speed. Sometimes, a saw being on the heavy side isn't all bad, and we feel that this saw's weight helps it feel secure and inspires confidence while cutting, especially at the high speeds it's capable of.

This workhorse saw made cuts at almost a foot per second on a 2"x12"—making it one of the fastest ripping saws we've used.

Metal Cuts

The Skil SPT77WML-01 handles metal cutting quickly and efficiently, making it great for any metal-cutting project, whether it be sheets of aluminum or thick steel pipes. Using a 48-tooth metal-cutting blade, the Skil managed to cut through 16-gauge sheet metal faster than most saws we tested in just 16 seconds, and was one of the fastest at cutting through a 2-inch steel pipe in just 6 seconds.

Blade Change

When changing the blade, we appreciated the included wrench, which is securely stored on the saw when not in use. The wrench was long enough that we had plenty of leverage to break the blade bolt loose and tighten it. We prefer this type of wrench over the Allen wrenches included with some saws since it gives us better control when changing the blade. Our only gripes with blade changes for this saw are that the blade spindle lock is in a weird location that can be a bit awkward, and the blade bolt isn't marked to indicate that left is tight and right is loose.