Makita 5094DWD Cordless Trim Saw: Discontinued — What to Buy Instead
A 3-3/8 in NiCd trim saw from the era before lithium. Long retired, and the battery platform behind it is gone too.
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The 5094DWD was a small cordless circular saw: a 3-3/8 in blade on a 9.6V nickel-cadmium battery. In its day it was the tool for cutting laminate flooring, thin ply and panelling in place, where a full-size saw was too much and a jigsaw left too rough an edge.
It is discontinued, and so is everything around it. Makita’s 9.6V NiCd platform is long gone, replacement NiCd packs are now third-party cells of unpredictable quality, and the 3-3/8 in blade size has largely disappeared from mainstream ranges.
Is a used one worth buying?
Generally, no — and this is worth being blunt about, because these turn up cheaply.
The saw itself will probably work. The battery will not. NiCd cells self-discharge and develop high internal resistance sitting on a shelf, and a twenty-year-old pack that shows a charge will often collapse under load within seconds. Rebuilt packs exist and cost more than the tool is worth.
If you already own one with a healthy battery, it is a perfectly good tool for what it does. Just do not buy into the platform now.
What replaces it
There are two honest answers depending on the job.
For cutting sheet goods and timber cordlessly, the Makita XSS02Z on the current 18V LXT platform, linked below, is where that line of tools ended up: 6-1/2 in blade, batteries that are still sold, and the same tool-only pricing that makes it cheap to add if you own LXT batteries.
For the specific job the 5094DWD was best at — trimming flooring and panelling in place — a modern compact track saw or even a multi-tool with a plunge blade is a closer match, because the small blade was never the point; the control was.