Various claims have been made as to who invented the circular saw
- One suggestion is that it was invented in 1813 by Tabitha Babbit, a Shaker spinster, who sought to ease the labour of the male sawyers in her community.[1]
- Another frequent claim is for a little known sailmaker named Samuel Miller of Southampton, England who obtained a patent in 1777 for a saw windmill.[2] However the specification for this only mentions the form of the saw incidentally, probably indicating that it was not his invention.
- Walter Taylor of Southampton had the blockmaking contract for Portsmouth Dockyard. In about 1762 he built a saw mill where he roughed out the blocks. This was replaced by another mill in 1781. Descriptions of his machinery there in the 1790s show that he had circular saws. Taylor patented two other improvements to blockmaking but not the circular saw.[3] This suggests that he did not invent it.
- Another claim is that it originated in Holland in the sixteenth or seventeenth century.[4] This may be correct, but nothing more precise is known.
posted by SEAGAMES 2009 @ 7:02 AM,
