Evolution on Killer Cable Snap: Water cut.

Maybe it knocks them off their feet first in most cases??

Seems that a sufficiently powerful water jet is plausible. They're used in the food industry. The situation where one could manage to try and run through one is somewhat less plausible.

Some waterjet cutters, with the addition of abrasives can up to around 10" thick steel.

And, yes, they ARE slow, and there is little room between the nozzle and the work.
Water only waterjet cutters are also out there, but they are used for other materials like
Plastic, Rubber, Silicone, Cork, and materials like that.

Looked for awhile, but could not find much. Even such documents as damage control procedures were tricky to find. Have not really looked for this sort of document in the past, so it could be that my google-fu is not up to the task.




Thinking on the origin, I think I heard it originally from my dad who heard it from someone in the navy while over at Europe. Would not discount the possibility it could of been a prank on a new recruit. But seen or heard it a few other places that are not coming to mind at the moment

During the recent horse-meat fiasco there was reference to the use of high pressure water jets for reclamation of meat left on the bone after butchering.

As for the myth about slicing a person in half, I would expect that it would more likely act as a needle-less hypodermic, filling the victim's tissues with excessive quantities of water.

Well, cutting food with a "cleanwater jet" is a common application.

The first application for cutting stuff with water was cutting complex shapes for modern diaper. Then water was used for cutting sheetmetal, e.g. the Swiss "Swatch" wristwatches became so popular because they were made highly accurate but inexpensive, the clockwork parts were cut using water.

Nowadays, water is used for all kinds of precise cuts, even hard steel up to several inches thick!

The food industry loves their cleanwater jets since they can cut almost anything food related without squishing it and there are no blades to wear out. Just look at canned fruits how precise they are cut nowadays. About 20 years ago, you had to browse several cans of cut fruits to decorate a perfect looking fruit tart. With the clearwater technology, almost every fruit piece is so precise that you can use them all for decoration. Also in the past, whole cherries were sitting on a cherry tart as decoration and you had to be careful with the stone. Nowadays, they use cut in half ones because that's a good method to make perfect looking stoneless cherries. They look like a whole one stuck in whipped cream.

And if you can cut 5 inches of steel, I have no doubt that you can cut bones and meat of a human. Might even look perfect like they cut canned fruits!

The jets do wear out but not as fast as a blade. When a blade is slightly worn, it starts squishing the juice out of fruits and vegetables. A worn jet just makes a wider cut until seriously worn so the quality of the food products remains very high for a very long time.

I vaguely remember that a knife cutting pineapples had to be replaced every few hours and if a piece of the blade is missing, they had to dump the whole batch. The clearwater jet will go on for weeks without any service except cleaning the machine daily and there are no dangerous metal bits falling out.

You can't cut vegetables with a single blade alone. And making a blade sharp enough to slice vegetables without any significant pressure to it can't be done with an angle grinder. The blade needs to be very thin.

Also cleaning a cutting mechanism is time consuming - or would you enjoy bits of food in your meal which had stuck in the mechanism for days growing mould or germs?

And switching blades every few hours is a lot more cost and time consuming than using a nozzle which lasts months!

And with a water jet, you can cut a lot faster without charring the food than using a blade! In a "meat cutter", they need to add lots of ice to prevent frying the meat before it is ready to be cooked. You can't use a water jet to grind meat - but the same applies to vegetables and other food items. You can process it many time faster which makes the water jet very economic and it improves the quality and hygiene.