mall saw

[amertrac]

A Friend just dropped this mall #38300 off and told me it was belt driven. It actually is drill driven someone broke the drill off the saw leaving the final drive gear on the saw. i checked the saw out and it was in a 1953 mall catalog for $12.50   I don't know when I will be getting at checking and cleaning it but it looks in decent shape

[Bill Houghton]

Mall offered a lot of drill-driven attachments.  I've never seen that one; I've got a belt sander that's pretty fine.

[ron darner]

I've got three of them from Mall; one has a plated front guard.  The other two have the black finish like this.  Oddly, the one with (chrome?) plating has a black finish on the upper half of the aluminum housing.  Similar reciprocating saw conversion tools were also made by Saw Chief and Super Saw.  At least some of them could be used to hold a file instead of a saw blade.
There were MANY saber saw conversions; all that I've seen or collected take smaller blades.  Some had layouts similar to this, though usually the blade motion is at right angles to the input shaft axis.

[ron darner]

[Second Attempt] I came across a Mall ad in the June 1954 issue of The Home Craftsman magazine.  It shows several of their attachments, and includes pricing.

[rusty]

Ahh...the mandatory hedge trimmer...did anyone who made drill powered tools NOT offer a hedge trimmer? LOL

It is funny that the sabre saw is cheaper than the hedge trimmer tho...

I like how they don't show the drill attached, so you don't realize how ungainly and awkward the whole contraption is going to be ;P

[ron darner]

Even if the reciprocating saw and hedge trimmer used the same mechanism, the additional cost of the blade & blade guide should account for the difference.  I either don't have a Mall hedge trimmer, or haven't cataloged it yet if I do, so I can't just put them side-by-side for comparison.  I've got several other brands of hedge trimmer, though!  Suspect that you're not surprised at all . . .