The World's Strongest Nutcracker Can Devour Almost Anything

Come holiday time, certain decorations start to materialize: wreaths on doors; Christmas trees; and nutcrackers—those officious-looking wooden sentries whose military purpose is to use their functional jaws for splitting nuts.

If you’ve ever tried to use a nutcracker, however, you soon realize they don’t have much in the way of actual force. So, YouTuber Shane Wighton decided to level up and craft a nutcracker that could bite the hitch off a pick-up truck.

As Gizmodo reports, what you’re seeing here is a nutcracker Wighton named "Jaws" that's outfitted with explosive blank shells—similar to the kind used in construction to drive nails into concrete—to supercharge its biting force from “barely able to damage a peanut” to “do not let children anywhere near this thing.”

With 80,000 pounds of biting force and a “jaw” able to snap shut at 200 miles an hour, the nutcracker is able to tackle actual hardware nuts, among other inedible items.

Nutcracker devices can be traced back to 200 BCE, with the wooden soldier aesthetic popping up in Germany around the 17th century. How they grew to be synonymous with holiday celebrations is murky: One popular German myth has it that a wealthy farmer challenged townspeople to come up with a practical way of splitting nuts. Each one drew from their profession—a carpenter advised to saw them in half—but it was a puppet maker who suggested a functional doll.

The nutcracker spread to the United States following World War II, when soldiers began bringing them home en masse. The popularity of The Nutcracker ballet also helped create demand for the tiny people, which are now considered decorating staples.