I recently acquired the object shown which claims to be a Cut All Swivel Saw. I had never seen this tool before and was keen to learn the age and maker. A good clean with a wire brush on a Dremel revealed an inscription on the end of the handle. The maker was none other than The Cut All Swivel Saw Co (no help there then) of Smethwick, Birmingham.

Fortunately, there was also a notation ‘Brit patent 793110’ which, with the help of Espacenet, quickly led to a Provisional Patent application on 25 May 1955 by Cago Sales Ltd with the inventor shown as Gordon Milfred Cave. The provisional patent said the invention related to hand tools such as saws, scrapers, and files but the Complete Specification filed on 24 May 1956 refers solely to hand saws. The saw blade holder swivels both horizontally and laterally in relation to the blade to allow the saw to be used in confined spaces. The blade, which is missing from my example, seems to be similar to a pad saw blade with a slotted end. The actual device differs from the patent drawing in having a simpler handle but neater adjusting nuts instead of the wing nuts.

Cago Sales Ltd had changed name to Cago Ltd by May 1956 and was based at Vernon House, 510A Coventry Road, Birmingham 10.  Gordon Milfred Cave, Managing Director, was born in West Bromwich in 1925, married Joan Hopley in 1946 and died in 1984 when he was living at Hall Green, Birmingham. I could find little more about Cave but newspaper adverts showed Cago Ltd was trading in 1958 as Chemical Engineers selling a compound for repairing split pipes (7000 sold at the date of the article), in 1959 as Fabricators in Fibre Glass and in 1971 as Plastic Fabricators.

An article in the Birmingham Gazette on 24 April 1956 explains that the saw was the only item the firm had made and that there were 4 blades for different materials available.  All I need now is the blades and I am set up to cut all in any contortion.

Tony Waldis