Matt Greenburg was at the Columbus IPMS Nationals with a new product. They were selling like hotcakes, and after seeing the demonstration, I bought one. As a Convention Special, Matt threw in a pair of extra blades.

The knife is special because the blade rotates to follow the movement of your hand as it changes direction while cutting. This allows very good control of the curves and angles of the cut. The business card below was cut by Matt with one sweep of the Gyro-Cut.

The trick is that you start the cut and move your hand along the line to be cut, and the blade follows. Because it is angled, the tip drags the blade into cutting position, even if the line cut is not straight. So it is possible to cut a curved or wavy line just by drawing the knife along the line, just like using a pencil to draw. Acute angles (less than 90 degrees) require a little finesse, but the knife can do it. You just stop at the angle and let the blade swivel before you go very far.

So I attacked a test project. I was getting ready to paint my HK Models 1/144 Meteor. The kit comes with no instructions or decals.

Google Images and I found a drawing of a Meteor with the camouflage scheme shown in 3-view, top, left and right. I resized the drawing to fit the model, and printed it out in black & white.

I painted the top of the model green, and prepared to cut the stencil to cover the green portion of the camo scheme to paint the gray. It might have been better to do the lighter color and cover it with the dark one, but…..

I cut the print outs into two pieces, top view and side views. I outlined the lines between the gray and green with a Sharpie to make them easier to see. I then taped the drawings to the bottom of a glass table. I put a light under the table so it shone through the drawings from behind.

I took a piece of wide Tamiya tape and put it over the drawing on the table top. I was then able to see the lines I needed to cut through the paper and tape.

I used the Gyro-Cut Knife to follow the lines. It worked marvelously.

I removed the tape, and unlike previous times when I used a #11 Xacto blade, the cuts were continuous and the “extra” part of the tape came off cleanly, without binding or tearing.

I continued this for the rest of the masks for the Meteor. The Gyro-Cut worked beautifully.

If it worked this well for 1/144, imagine how useful this would be in larger scales.

Overall Evaluation

Very highly recommended. This tool makes making a mask much less of a chore. I also think I may use it for cutting out decals. We’ve just scratched the surface of how useful this knife may be, but if the only thing I ever use it for is masks, it’s still $20 well spent.

Note: Replacement Blades are available via the Gyro-Cut website for $7.95

Many thanks to Gyro-Cut USA for the review item, and to IPMS USA for allowing me to review the item.