Power Tools for the New Normal, Part 5 – Cordless Reciprocating Saw

The drill discussed in Power Tools for the New Normal, Part 4 – Cordless Impact Drill was meant to be my final purchase from this brand.

However, this decision changed when I inspected the Malunggay trees that have grown unabated even before this pandemic began. The continuous rain as of late encouraged them to develop so rapidly, one tree has grown so tall that it may touch the high tension power line above it.

The company that owns the power lines typically handles pruning trees that pose a danger but they haven’t been around for quite a while. In order to prevent a potential mishap from occurring, I decided not to wait any longer.

Before continuing, please allow me to segue to the time a large Kaimito branch came crashing down. This occurred without warning after a particularly long thunderstorm. Thankfully, no one was under the tree as it happened at night.

[Even Bass, our Golden Retriever, was sound asleep instead of playing underneath the tree.]

I used a machete to cut it down to size so it could be carted away. With adrenaline fueling me, I did not realize that I had overworked my arms. It was only in the evening that the acute pain, which manifested itself for several days, started.

Faced with having to work on more branches this time, there was absolutely no way I was putting myself though that experience again. Hence, the acquisition.

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Much like the Cordless Impact Drill, I have been planning to purchase a Cordless Reciprocating Saw for the longest time. The reason I have not done so yet is that I always considered it to be a luxury.

With a machete, I didn’t have to pay for the power tool, a battery, and charger. Also, manual labor was free, unlike the electricity needed to recharge a battery.

[Not to mention, I get more exercise doing things manually.]

While I hate to admit it, age appears to have caught up to me. Once upon a time, I would have had unlimited energy working with a machete and would come out if it with bigger muscles. All I get today is a lot of pain before becoming incapacitated for days. So even if I still haven’t truly accepted the thought, I needed to get a tool that would make work easier, faster, and not cause any injuries.

Having grudgingly decided on a purchase, I checked out suitable models from my preferred brands online before visiting several physical hardware stores. At this point, I was adamant on getting another brand to begin my migration to a new system.

The bad news was that this was not to be. If my preferred brand of cordless impact drill was a rare find on shelves, cordless reciprocating saws were conspicuously absent.

[Nada. Zip. Nothing.]

I was again told that if I wanted to acquire one from my preferred brands a special order had to be made. In addition to this, I was again told that they could not commit to a date of arrival for the tool.

Decision

Since those trees weren’t going to cut themselves, I ended up trudging back to the store where I purchased my Cordless Impact Drill to look for one sporting a brushless motor. Even more bad news is that they only carried a single model running on a brushed motor.

[This is my first brushed motor; hopefully it will be the last.]

Thankfully, this model came as a separate unit, meaning it wasn’t bundled with batteries or a charger, so it wasn’t as expensive as my Cordless Impact Drill. Still on the matter of price, the cost of this brushed unit was between half to a third of the price that popular brands were charging online.

[Do note that some of the competition on the internet offered brushless motors so it isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison.]

Test

There are only two things to consider when using this power tool – the trigger lock and the trigger. The first needs to be disengaged before you can depress the latter.

I wasn’t able to start work on the day I purchased the unit because it was raining heavily. However, once the sky cleared and the trees dried sufficiently, the tests began in earnest.

Test Day 1 – Guava Tree

Unlike the first test of my Cordless Impact Drill, wherein it saw very light duty, this Cordless Reciprocating Saw was conscripted into moderate service. I say moderate because the wood of the Guava tree could be classified to be under medium hardness, at least as far as our garden is concerned.

Taking a total of one hour to prune, I still had enough battery power to run my Cordless Leaf Blower to clear the cemented area near the tree.

Test Day 2 – Malunggay Trees

The second test consisted of trimming the Malunggay tree near the high tension power line. This was the second biggest tree of its kind in the garden.

After being wrapped in protective equipment, I started my trimming. Early into the task, I noted that this Cordless Reciprocating Saw bucked like a wild bronco at times. It turns out that the trick is to use it only for parts that are unmovable. And even then, the unit’s guard needs to be firmly planted to prevent it from vibrating excessively.

It is one thing to work on a single fallen branch and another to work on several still connected to the tree, I had to take a different approach by using a ladder to trim the top parts in sections before finally working on their bases. This way the branches would not be long enough to reach out to the power cables or, worse, land on parked cars when they came down.

As you can imagine, being atop a ladder requires planning and a lot of care so work was slow-moving. I would stop every now and to re-plan the direction branches should fall. This was especially critical as the branches got thicker and bigger as I worked my way down.

While it took about three hours to complete this one tree, the operating time of the Cordless Reciprocating Saw was not continuous. When the final branch came down I had used one whole battery plus a tad bit from another one.

Test Day 3 – Malunggay Trees

The second test had me working on the largest Malunggay tree in our garden. This one was near a neighbor’s house so I had to make sure any severed branches didn’t fall on the roof or, worse, crash into a window.

Just like working on the first tree, I took the time to figure out how the principles of gravity and pivot points can be applied to each branch. I also took into consideration how the surrounding trees would break or redirect the fall of severed branches.

With this tree being much taller, I needed to extend the ladder a lot higher in order to get as much of the top areas as possible. A shorter branch meant less danger of it going over the wall to wreak havoc next door.

A taller tree also meant the bases of each branch were bigger and heavier. There was one instance when a middle section was blown by a sudden gust of wind towards my face. Thankfully, my face mask was on so I did not get injured.

While it felt like I progressed more slowly than the first instance, I was pleasantly surprised to note that my watch indicated the job took about two and a half hours to accomplish. Although the work duration was shorter, I ended up using two fully charged batteries.

Test Day 4 – Malunggay Trees

The third test day for this set saw the trimming of the last of the Malunggay trees. What should have been a straight forward activity turned out to be the most complicated of all the Malunggay trees.

While the initial trees could be guided down to open areas, the final three had to be directed towards a spot where several clothes lines crisscrossed. The issue is that they would tip over after leaning the ladder on them. Due to this, the branches could not be trimmed in sections.

[This was another accident just waiting to happen because all it might have taken was a strong enough gust of wind to topple them.]

In addition to taking down whole branches, I the third day was also used allotted to trimming the trunks to a more manageable height. Unfortunately, I could not do this for the first and second largest trees. This was due to their diameter being much longer than the Cordless Reciprocating Saw blade. Even when I attempted to start from different directions, the blade simply was too short to allow incisions to meet at the center.

[A machete will be able to solve this issue but you already know my stand on that…]

By the end of day four of testing, nine Malunggay trees were trimmed, three sunny days were used up, two fully charged batteries were depleted, two wired clotheslines were snapped, and an additional four and half hours were consumed for a total of ten hours.

Test Day 5 – Duhat and Other Trees

This test was initiated over a week later due to heavy rain brought about by the monsoon season. It was only after the second day of continuous sunshine that work started.

This time around, I had two Duhat trees and a couple of other equally hard-wooded trees lined up for trimming. So after piling on my protective equipment I got to work on the trees beside the second largest Duhat.

[I would surmise that the wood of these trees were of typical hardness.]

Ten minutes into my test this Cordless Reciprocating Saw started to sputter before shutting down completely. I remedied this by removing the battery then re-inserting it back in. However, it stopped working after a couple more minutes’ use on a branch the size of a baseball handle.

A check on the indicator of the first battery showed two out of three LEDs were lighted. I then swapped it out with a fully charged battery to no avail.

Intermission

Yesterday, I packed Cordless Reciprocating Saw in its box in preparation for its return to the store. Today, I decided to re-test it with a freshly charged battery and it started like there was no problem.

I am not sure what exactly caused this power tool to shut down. It certainly wasn’t the hardness of the wood because it had already seen service with a Guava tree. It is possible that it may have overheated and the onboard electronics temporarily shut it down. In any case, it appeared fine for another round of pruning.

[If I were a superstitious man, I might suggest that the tree is fighting not to be trimmed.]

Test Day 6 – Duhat and Other Trees

With the burning sun blazing down on the garden, I resumed working on the two trees beside the second largest Duhat tree in our garden. This was to clear a path to the areas for branches to safely fall onto.

This time, my Cordless Reciprocating Saw ran continuously. I did notice that it began to slow down after a while, which meant that the battery was nearly spent. It regained its full speed once a fresh power source was swapped in.

Having already trimmed one Guava and nine Malunggay trees, I expected work on this Duhat tree to be smooth sailing. So I was shocked when it turned out to be the most complicated one of all.

[Again, if I were a superstitious man, I might suggest that this tree fought me all the way.]

The behavior of the branches acted very differently from the previous trees. Instead of being easily guided to a safe spot, they appeared to have a mind of their own. This is probably due to their weight as they were comparatively much heavier.

After finishing with the first Duhat tree, I then started on the second one. The only issue I had at this time involved my Cordless Reciprocating Saw shutting down again. With my theory being it overheated, I gave it time to cool down. After a while, it resumed my pruning until a sudden downpour forced me to finally stop.

Prior to the rain, I had already trimmed off two very large branches with another large and two medium-sized ones remaining.

At that point in time, I had already used up approximately three and a half hours and a little over two full battery charges. All of my protective equipment, had plant juice and wood shavings, with some of the latter found in my hair.

While I could still continue with the last few branches at a later date, describing any additional applications of this Cordless Reciprocating Saw would be superfluous. Given all the tests I threw at this Cordless Reciprocating Saw, I would say that I have enough information to render a verdict. And with that, I formally close the testing section of this review.

[And no, I did not suddenly become superstitious by considering the rain might have been another message in a long succession being sent to me.]

Final Thoughts

As you have probably observed, this Cordless Reciprocating Saw endured the most rigorous testing of all the power tools I have to date. And as you also may have already deduced, I am giving this an overwhelming pass for working on wood.

Incidentally, I used the Cordless Reciprocating Saw for a leaking PVC pipe with equally positive results. Had I used a manual hacksaw, it would taken much longer to finish replacing the broken section. However, I cannot say how it would perform with metal as I haven’t used it on that substance yet.

The only minor issue I found was that the accompanying 150-millimeter wood blade was too short at times. However, this is in no way the fault of the company as this is the typical size bundled by other manufacturers as well.

[I understand that longer blades can be purchased in other countries.]

Having said that, I am satisfied with the short-term performance this power tool has exhibited. It met my requirements of lessening the effort, shortening the amount to work, and preventing any prolonged pain in the arms and even the back. I will even go as far as to say that it is indispensable for pruning trees and other plants in a garden.

Notwithstanding my preference for brushless models, I am pleased with this model and hope that it lasts longer than the six-month warranty it comes with.

With the heaviest work behind it, future activities can be expected to be much lighter. But before that happens, there is a large pile of logs that needs to be cut down to size so they can be disposed of. These branches have been sitting around for quite a while and have now become a favorite of termites.

[Several branches are of the harder Kaimito wood.]

Well, we are now at that part where we discuss what other power tool is best combined with this one. In this case, I suggest getting the Cordless Oscillating Tool.

This is the surgical counterpart to the tank that is the Cordless Reciprocating Saw. With a Cordless Oscillating Tool, one can get really close at removing small plants or trees that have started to grow in the cracks and corners all around a house. It can also peel off roots that have stubbornly fastened themselves on walls. It isn’t designed for large jobs or high volumes, hence its needing to be paired with another tool capable of that.

And with that, I end my contribution to this series. Thank you for joining us at Anything Under the Sun. We hope you can visit us again soon.