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Watching a hydraulic press crush silly string is so tense

Published Jun 2nd, 2016 4:35PM EDT
Hydraulic Press Silly String

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It seems like everything possible has been crushed in a hydraulic press already, but from time to time, something comes along that raises the bar for good crushing.

I don’t know who wakes up in the morning and thinks “hey, we should use a giant hydraulic press to crush a can of silly string,” but I’m glad that they’re out there.

DON’T MISS: A man who crushes things with a hydraulic press is 2016’s viral video sensation

As you can imagine, a can of silly string is no match for a press that easily demolishes balls of nickel and hockey pucks. But it’s the process that makes this so satisfying. First, a little bit of string is pushed out by the press as it comes down. Then, the can is slowly compacted into itself, before the seal gives up the ghost and an entire can’s worth of string flies out the side.

Hydraulic press as a YouTube genre is a recent phenomenon which can be traced back to Lauri Vuohensilta and the Hydraulic Press Channel. Vuohensilta is a Finnish factory owner who says he uses the machine a couple times per month for work. But he realized that a hydraulic press is the perfect way to feed YouTube’s love of wanton destruction, and he was right.

Since his first videos involving Barbies and golf balls, his channel has become enormously popular, and spawned all kinds of copycats. PressTube, the site that made the video below, is one of those. But just because it’s not the original, doesn’t make the video any less enjoyable.

Chris Mills
Chris Mills News Editor

Chris Mills has been a news editor and writer for over 15 years, starting at Future Publishing, Gawker Media, and then BGR. He studied at McGill University in Quebec, Canada.