4 historic power tools that might be hiding in your dad's garage

Published Oct 21, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT Aggy is a veteran writer and editor in the technology and gaming space. Having served as a Managing Editor for high-traffic digital publications, alongside being an editor and consultant for over a dozen sites. Aggy's published work spans a wide and respected array of tech and gaming outlets, including WePC, Screen Rant, How-To Geek, Android Police, PC Invasion, and Try Hard Guides. Beyond editorial work, Aggy's direct experience in the tech sphere extends to app development. Aggy has published two games under Tales and is always eager to learn and do more. He also likes working on computers and researching in his spare time. He knows about Windows, Linux, Audio, Video, and much more. Most garages fill up with tools the same way attics fill up with boxes. You hang onto stuff because it seemed worth keeping at the time. If your dad was the type to buy quality once and hold onto it, there's a real chance some of what's sitting on his shelves is actually a piece of history. These aren't just fun finds for collectors. Each one changed how power tools were built, wired, or sold to contractors and homeowners. A few of them still work today, as long as you know what to check before you plug them in. The Makita 6010D changed cordless drills The removable battery pack started here Back in 1978, Makita rolled out the 6010D cordless drill, and it's a pretty big deal in the story of power tools. Many people credit it with pulling battery-powered tools out of the novelty aisle and turning them into something contractors and weekend DIYers could actually rely on. Older cordless drills, like the one Black and Decker released in 1961, had built-in battery cells you couldn't remove, and you had to charge them with external wiring. The 6010D changed things by giving regular buyers a battery pack they could pop off. It ran on a 7.2-volt DC setup with a nickel-cadmium "stick" battery that slid into the bottom of the handle, and it charged in a dedicated cradle called the DC7100 fast charger. That removable pack idea is where the swappable batteries on just about every cordless tool today got their start. Here's how to spot a real vintage 6010D in a garage or shop. The model name sits on a silver foil label on the left side of the plastic housing, right above the trigger and under the motor vents. The body is Makita's original teal with black trim, and it has a 3/8-inch keyed chuck. Tracking down a working original battery is close to impossible. With a battery in, the whole thing weighs around 2.1 pounds. It uses a single-speed brushed DC motor running through a spur and planetary gear reduction, and it tops out at 600 RPM with no load. Those old green Black and Decker kits The old power cords on these are a fire hazard Through the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Black and Decker ran a line of electric drills you could recognize thanks to their olive-green and harvest-gold plastic casings. These kits were sold in fitted metal or heavy molded plastic cases. You could attach accessories to the chuck or gear housing, things like sanding pads, buffing bonnets, wire brushes, orbital sander heads, right-angle drives, and jigsaw attachments, and turn a basic 1/4-inch or 3/8-inch drill into a whole workshop's worth of tools. These drills also showed up right when tool safety was changing in a big way. Before this era, most portable power tools had heavy metal housings and relied on a physical ground connection through a three-prong plug to keep users from getting shocked. In the late 1960s, tool makers worked with Underwriters Laboratories through the Power Tool Institute to establish double-insulation standards, which eventually became UL 45 and were recognized by the National Electrical Code. A double-insulated tool doesn't need a ground wire because it uses basic insulation right on the internal live conductors and a non-conductive outer casing with plastic trigger parts and isolated motor mounts. Since this transition happened bit by bit, a plastic housing by itself doesn't automatically mean a tool is fully double-insulated. Some early models still had internal grounding wires or uninsulated metal parts inside. The power cord and strain relief are where the real danger lies. After five decades, the original rubber or early PVC cord insulation tends to get hard, shrink, and crack. The weak spot is almost always right where the cord goes into the handle, where years of flexing fray the copper strands inside. Running a tool with cracked or damaged cord insulation is a fire and shock risk. On top of that, the mechanical floating-trigger switches in these drills can end up with pitted and oxidized contacts over time, which can make them weld shut or overheat under load. These tools can still shock you Credit: Craftsman From the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, Sears sold a premium line of Craftsman power tools with mirror-polished die-cast aluminum and zinc-alloy housing. They all have bold Art Deco styling and some serious heft. Since Sears was a retailer and not a manufacturer, it contracted with industrial toolmakers to build these under the Craftsman name. The easiest way to tell if you have a vintage chrome Craftsman is to check the model number on the metal rating plate. Sears used a three-digit prefix before the decimal point to show who made the tool. Also, unlike a double-insulated plastic tool, bare cast metal gives you no electrical protection at all. If the internal winding insulation breaks down, a stator coil shorts, or a loose wire touches the inside of the casting, the whole metal shell becomes live. These tools originally used a three-conductor cord with a green pigtail ground wire meant to be fastened under an outlet cover plate screw. Over the years, some owners may have cut off those ground wires or swapped in two-prong replacement plugs, leaving the tool completely ungrounded. Before you plug any chrome tool into a wall outlet, use a multimeter to check that there's close to zero resistance between the ground prong and the metal shell. The Skil Model 77 is a classic framing saw The gears need oil, or the saw is dead Credit: skil Skilsaw introduced the Skil Model 77 worm drive circular saw in 1937, and it's one of the most famous power tools in American construction. It's been in continuous production for close to a century in basically the same layout and is still a go-to framing saw for professional carpenters and tradespeople. The Model 77 isn't built like a standard direct-drive sidewinder circular saw. Its motor sits in a different spot and drives the blade a different way. A sidewinder mounts its motor perpendicular to the blade and spins it through spur gears. The Model 77 runs its motor parallel to the line of cut and transfers power through a right-angle worm gear reduction. That drops blade speed to around 4,400 RPM while generating much more torque, letting it push through wet, dense, or knotty lumber where a sidewinder would bog down or stall. The inline motor placement also puts the blade on the left side of the saw, so right-handed users can see the cut line clearly. The worm gears run in a sealed oil bath, so old or low gear oil is the most common reason vintage saws fail. The transmission uses a hardened steel worm screw driving a manganese bronze worm wheel. So even if you find one, it probably won't run if nobody keeps up with the oil. Garages can be treasure troves Finding one of these tools in decent shape is pretty satisfying, but going straight from "it was in a dry garage" to plugging it in is where you'd get into trouble. If you find something cool, remember the inside could be corroded, which can make it dangerous. So take the time to fix it up before you use it.