Paper Blades...!!

Can paper cut wood? Last year John Heisz decided to remove his table saw blade, and replace it with a circle he cut out of paper. Here's what happened:

While you can see the burn marks in the videos, what you can't see is the cut quality on the successfully-cut pieces. It's shockingly smooth:

On his blog, Heisz reveals that those of you ready to try this will need some patience. "There are sections of the video where I'm cutting that are sped up as much as 16 times," he writes, "so it's not the fastest way to make a cut!"

And he also tried it out on aluminum, but found that "it more or less just polished the edge before wearing out. The abrasiveness of the paper works well on wood, but is no match for anything harder."

Now in two different 'you tube' channels, the video makers put paper wheels into their angle grinders to experiment on a variety of materials.

Click on the picture to watch the video

Click on the picture to watch the video

Overall I was amazed to see what sort of cuts the paper discs made in the polycarbonate Coke bottle and the corrugated cardboard. And I also didn't think it would penetrate the coconut shell. Have you ever tried this?

Interesting - cheers, Gaston