The Craftsman Radial Arm Saw Recall: 3.7 Million Saws and the Guard They Never Had

Is your saw in the recall?

Check three things on the saw itself:

1. The model number starts with 113. It is usually on a plate on the base of the saw. The 113 prefix means Emerson Electric built it for Sears.
2. It says Craftsman and Sears on the saw.
3. It is a radial arm saw, the kind where the motor and blade hang from an arm above the table and you pull the blade across the wood.

The saws sold for between 100 and 700 dollars new, depending on the model, the year and the accessories.

What the recall offered in 2000

Owners were told to stop using the saws and contact Emerson. Emerson offered a free repair kit with a new guarding system, which the CPSC called "a substantial safety improvement over guarding systems manufactured before 1993." Saws too old to take the kit qualified for 100 dollars if the owner returned the saw carriage, the part that holds the motor and blade.

The injuries listed in the notice were hand and finger amputations, cuts to hands, arms and fingers, broken hands and fingers, and injuries to the face.

The guard that was an accessory

On the early Craftsman saws the full blade guard was something you bought separately. The manual for the 9-inch model 113.29350 says: "Accessory safety guards are available for most tools. Use of these guards is highly recommended."

The manuals did warn, at length and often in capital letters. The 10-inch model 113.19760 manual says "A CARELESS FRACTION OF A SECOND IS SUFFICIENT TO INFLICT SEVERE INJURY" and tells the owner to "ALWAYS RETURN THE CARRIAGE TO THE FULL REARWARD POSITION AT CONCLUSION OF EACH CROSSCUT TYPE OPERATION." It also explains kickback, when a board is "thrown back violently toward the operator".

A court case shows how the guard question reached the courts. A Maryland carpenter bought a 10-inch Craftsman radial saw in November 1984. Its manual listed a lower retractable blade guard as optional, and only for straight crosscuts. In June 1985, while ripping a board, he lost four fingers of his left hand. A trial court ruled for Sears and Emerson in 1991. In 1992 Maryland's Court of Special Appeals reversed it: whether the missing lower guard was a design defect was a question for a jury.

The saw in millions of basements

The radial arm saw turned woodworking upside down. Instead of pushing a long board across a spinning blade, the board lay still on the table and you pulled the blade over it along the arm. The same machine could crosscut, cut angles and bevels, and with the motor turned, rip boards and drive other attachments.

Sears sold the 8-, 9- and 10-inch Craftsman versions in its stores and catalogs from 1958. The earliest 10-inch manual on the Internet Archive is for model 113.29003, dated 1958. Owner's manuals list motors turning at 3,450 RPM, 9.5 amps for the 9-inch model and 11.5 amps for the 10-inch, with a table about 39 inches off the floor and a one-year warranty. In 1984 Sears published a whole book, "Power Tool Know How: Radial Saw", describing more than 600 operations, and in 1989 it released a VHS tape, "Sears Craftsman: The Radial Saw".

Who invented the radial arm saw

Raymond DeWalt, born in Oakville, Pennsylvania, in 1885, learned his trade in his father's wagon shop. He filed a patent for "Woodworking Machinery" on 27 January 1923, from Bridgeton, New Jersey, at age 37, and it was granted as US Patent 1,528,536 on 3 March 1925. The patent describes a motor that slides along an arm above the work and tilts to cut at any angle.

He founded the DeWalt Products Company in Pennsylvania in 1924 to make the machine, sold as the "Wonder-Worker". American Machine and Foundry bought the company in 1949 and Black & Decker bought it in 1960. DeWalt died in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1961. The town now marks 9 October as Raymond DeWalt Day.

What happened to the radial arm saw

The radial arm saw lost its main job first. From the late 1970s the compound miter saw began taking over crosscuts, and in 2009 Fine Homebuilding wrote that sliding compound miter saws "have taken the place of the radial-arm saw."

Sears stopped selling the 8-, 9- and 10-inch models in 1992 and the 8-1/4-inch model in 1995. In 1998 Emerson started its own RIDGID line of bench and stationary tools for Home Depot, and in June 2000 Woodworker's Journal reported that Sears had decided not to renew Emerson's contract for benchtop and stationary tools. The recall came five months later.

Emerson also owned the chainsaw maker Poulan from 1973 to 1986. On 6 May 2003 Emerson announced it would stop making bench-top and stationary woodworking power tools and license the RIDGID name instead.

The other radial arm saw recall

Ryobi sold the RA200 and RA202 bench-top radial arm saws from 1986 to 1997 for 200 to 300 dollars. On 13 July 2006 the CPSC announced a recall of about 145,000 of them, because the plastic motor housing could crack and let the blade assembly fall. There was no repair; Ryobi offered 75 dollars for returning part of the saw.

Does anyone still make radial arm saws?

Yes, for industry. When Lancaster Machinery, the last holder of the DeWalt industrial radial saw line, closed around 1990, Robert and Laurie Eden bought the rights and started the Original Saw Company in Britt, Iowa, with 11 models and five employees. By the company's own count it now makes 24 radial arm saw models from 12 to 22.5 inches. These are heavy industrial machines, not the home-shop saw Sears sold.

If you have an old Craftsman radial saw, the owner's manual matters more than usual: it shows which guard your saw came with. Original manuals and parts still turn up regularly.