Ryobi has made power tools for decades, and while some have become industry stalwarts, others are now relics of the past and collectibles.Here are five unique Ryobi tools so rare you'll only see them in a collector's house — and the third one down is my favorite.One+One dual-battery miter saw Two batteries are better than one RYOBI has been making 12V, 18V, and even 40V tools for quite some time.
But did you know they also made 36V tools for a short time? Well, they kinda made 36V tools.For a short time, Ryobi actually made a dual-battery miter saw.It used two 18V ONE+ batteries in series to deliver 36V of power to the miter saw.
It's a unique premise, and one that sadly didn't last long.This miter saw was meant for those who needed to get heavy work done on the job site without plugging into normal power.With two 9Ah batteries, Ryobi rated this miter saw at over 800 cuts per charge.
This meant that even heavy users should be able to get through a full day of work on a single pair of batteries.Sadly, the dual-battery monster miter saw is no more, but it's definitely coveted in the Ryobi groups.12V auto hammer Who wants to manually drive nails anyway? Some tools I understand why Ryobi canceled — like the next tool I'll be talking about.
Others, I don't understand, like the 12V auto hammer.If you've never heard of an auto hammer, it's just what you'd expect.An automatic hammer.
Basically, there's a cup that you put over the head of a nail, and then it hammers the nail in for you.Milwaukee has a similar tool called a palm nailer, but Ryobi's 12V auto hammer has a different (and more ergonomic) design than Milwaukee's.At the end of the day, Ryobi just isn't putting much effort into its 12V line of products like other brands are, which makes the good 12V tools it discontinues even more coveted.
Gas-powered reciprocating saw When batteries don't have enough power, a gas engine does Close It's no secret that Ryobi makes gas-powered tools like string trimmers and blowers, but did you know that Ryobi made a gas-powered reciprocating saw? I sure didn't.Normally, I would think that an 18V reciprocating saw would have all the power I'd need.In fact, years ago, I helped demo my parents' backyard with over 2,500 square feet of rotten decking and support beams plus eight years of overgrowth using an 18V Ryobi reciprocating saw.
However, Ryobi once made a reciprocating saw.You read that right.Gas-powered.
It was made back in the 1990s, when battery-powered tools weren't anywhere near where they are today in terms of power, and most tools were still plug-in if you wanted to actually get any work done.The coveted EJ-100 uses 25:1 2-cycle gas and is considered a holy grail tool by many.Of the very few Facebook Marketplace listings I've seen for it, most people just display it in their workshop these days instead of actually using it.
I can't say I blame them, though.The thought of trying to use a reciprocating saw accurately with a gas motor strapped to it isn't high on my list of things I want todo, though I would love to own one.Uproar 18V RC truck I want this RC truck In other news, Ryobi also made an 18V RC truck for a while, and this just scored a spot on my "must collect" list.
When I was talking about this article with a colleague here at How-To Geek, he brought up that Ryobi made an RC truck for a while, and I had no idea.The Uproar RC truck was a 1:10 scale truck that featured two-wheel rear-wheel drive, spring suspension, and a top speed of 20 mph.That's right, this thing scooted.
It only had a 150-foot control range, though, but you could run after it while it drove away at blistering speeds (for a battery-powered RC car).I've owned a lot of RC cars over the years, and the proprietary chargers were always annoying to deal with.So, the thought of being able to use my drill battery to power my RC car is very alluring.
Garage door opener Why does Chamberlain always ruin everything? I don't know about you, but I've never really "loved" any garage door opener that I've owned.They do a job, but they're not something that I go around talking about.Ryobi changed that script and made a garage door opener everyone wants, but nobody can have.
The garage door opener was simple in principle: a plug-in garage door opener that used an 18V ONE+ battery as a backup if the power ever went out.It also meant the opener doubled as a charger if you wanted to swap in a dead battery.However, after a few lawsuits from Chamberlain over patent infringement, Ryobi was ordered to pay $11 million in damages and was barred from selling the openers until 2023, though that was overturned in 2019.
Sadly, now several years past when the injunction was lifted, Ryobi still doesn't really sell the garage door openers anywhere.I think the story here is more that people loved having a multi-function garage door opener than it was a great garage door opener.But we'll never really know unless Ryobi starts selling the tools again.
Ryobi might be seen as a DIY brand, but they've made some fun products over the years While Ryobi is definitely a DIY/tool brand at heart, I love seeing the funky or crazy other tools that it's released over the years.The RC car and garage door opener take the cake for me, as neither is explicitly DIY-focused, but definitely DIY-loved.
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