Awesome Cutting

This powerful laser from ACCURL cuts through thick-walled metal tubing with ease. Its fiber laser head synchronizes with a second machine that turns the tube for smooth cuts all the way around. It can also cut holes in the sides of tubes and slice through I-beams. A smaller version cuts thinner tubes even faster.

This motorized rotary tool is better than scissors, especially when it comes to cutting materials like plastics, leather, carpeting, cardboard, and vinyl up to 1/4″ thick. It features a self-sharpening blade and ensures a clean, smooth cut in straight lines or curves. Aproca makes a custom-fit carrying case as an accessory.

You can cut pieces of wood to meet perfectly in a corner using a miter saw. But there are other scenarios where you need to work around things that make it more challenging. Entertainer Chaz Bruce re-shared this video of carpenters dealing with tricky corners while he and his son reacted to the cuts. That four-way pipe joint was so satisfying.

There are chefs with knife skills, then there’s Ryota Togishi. In this clip, the kitchen blademaster shows off his skills by cutting impossibly thin slices of bread, tomato, cucumber, and bacon. An extra-sharp Japanese knife certainly helps, but it also takes incredible dexterity to cut with such precision.

It’s amazing what you can do with a precise laser cutter. This video from Tranyond shows how a powerful fiber laser can cut such fine lines that it can turn a flat sheet of aluminum into a series of nested spheres. The trick is that each cut leaves a tiny bit of metal on its edges to keep them connected when it’s opened up.

Maker BigWR takes a momentary break from building strange bicycles to show off another skill. After taping a pattern around two glass bottles, he used a well-lubricated glass cutter to slice perfect spirals out of their sides. Then he got to the really tricky bit – separating the pieces without shattering the parts he wanted to keep.

At first we weren’t sure what we were watching, but we were immediately transfixed by this video. The footage shows someone taking a knife to a sphere made of countless layers of tape. As they cut deeper into the tape, a rainbow of colors emerges. Go figure that there are a bunch of tape-cutting videos on YouTube.

It’s amazing how water can be pressurized so much that it can cut through things. In this clip we spotted on the Tool Gifs subreddit, we get an up-close look at how a tightly-focused stream of water can cut incredibly precise shapes in stone. The footage does appear to have been sped up, though.

While checking out a Viking Pizza Axe, we came across a design from Umar’s Art Work that looks like a more practical way to cut a pizza. It has a handmade steel blade with Viking-inspired runes, and wooden handles. Its curved ulu-style edge slices neatly through pizza without toppings getting stuck like with a pizza wheel.

The Hydraulic Press Channel cuts right to the chase in this compilation video, showing off one of their sillier tools – a slicer tool that can cut things into eight (or sometimes more) pieces at once. It does pretty well slicing a stack of pizzas, but we think it would be more effective if they sharpened its blades.

The xTool M1 combines a cutting machine and laser engraver into a single desktop device. Its dual head lets it cut a wider variety of materials than either device alone. It’s available with 5W or 10W lasers, and the higher-power model can cut 8mm thick wood in a single pass. Its 11.8″ x 15.1″ work area is impressive for its size.

We’re not sure who the chef is behind this video, but he’s got some serious knife skills. Our jaws dropped when we saw the amazing lattice that emerged after he made a series of partial cuts through a slice of potato. Sure, the video has been sped up, but his precision is still on point.

There are lots of machines out there that can cut holes in flat sheets of steel, but MarkGyver built a machine that can make cuts into the curved face of a cylinder. Using a high-heat plasma cutter and a chain-driven rotating holder, the computer-controlled system can make smooth cuts through the surface of a steel tube.

We’ve always enjoyed watching videos of wood being turned on a lathe. However, the carving part is usually done with metal tools. The guys from the Waterjet Channel wanted to see if the powerful high-pressure cutting tip of their waterjet could be used to smoothly sculpt a spinning piece of wood in the same way.

The PyroLance allows firefighters to spray water into a burning structure without having to break down doors, walls, or ceilings. It uses extremely high pressure to drill a hole into an adjacent space, then sprays a fine mist on the other side to reduce the temperature.

If you’ve ever gotten a paper cut, you know how sharp the edge of a sheet of the stuff can actually be. The Q shows us how rapidly spinning a disc of paper on an angle grinder can turn it into a circular saw. Needless to say, keep all fingers and toes away from this thing.