Hands-On: Skil 4690 Corded Jigsaw
By Sean O'HaraConclusions
Skil’s 4690 gets the job done. With it we were able to make fine, smooth scroll-style cuts — and rip rough curves in thick ply in a major hurry. They take abuse quite well, and are easy on the arms.
For about $70, it’s an investment well worth making to have around the shop. It sports features that you may or may not wind up using — but the fact that you can adjust or turn off those features made us less resistant to trying them out. It’s a rugged, full featured saw that makes you feel like you got what you paid for. It’s good stuff.
4690 Corded Jigsaw [Skil]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon
May 19th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I bought one of these on sale from the Depot a couple of months ago to help with a new entertainment center project I was working on. I have to agree with your assessment, not only does it rock, but it does it at a great price too!
May 19th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
I have the older version of the same jigsaw. I hate it. The keyless holder has never been quite straight and the lever on the foot can’t be tightened, so it wiggles side to side. Lots of bad cuts and broken blades. It even caused a blade to catch and the jigsaw to jump up and hit me in the face once. Spend the extra dough and get the Bosh model.
May 20th, 2008 at 1:31 am
Buy it now, it’s only 70 bucks. Consider yourself lucky, in Europe same specs model goes for 170 USD!!!
May 20th, 2008 at 3:50 am
I really like the addition of a blower, but ever since owning a cordless one I feel *not* having a cord is the best feature a jigsaw can have.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:06 am
I got a new Bosch 1587AVSK on eBay last month for $81.00 including shipping, no sales tax. Previous experience with Skil tools tells me I made the correct choice.
May 20th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I’ve got the cordless 14.4V Skil model, one of the few cordless jigsaws out there. It works great for what it is, but it sucks the life out of the battery incredibly fast, so is only useful for occasional use. I’ve used a Bosch corded model, and it was definitely a lot more solid and heavy duty than either Skil model.
May 21st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
The Skil name used to be synonomous with high quality circular saws and the produced decent drills too. I think that when they were acquired by Bosch - that a decision was made that they would be to DIY’er line - like Black & Decker became to Dewalt and Porter Cable. I don’t see any more saws like the old super sawcat bearing the B&D name - whereas PC may offer a fairly decent product (although we will not trade in our old Skill 77’s just yet.). That probably makes good marketing sense - but it also means that the Skil Jigsaw offering will not compete with the Bosch (which was always the standard to judge others by.) If you make your living with using jigsaws to cope moldings etc. - buy a Bosch.