the machine has a wheel with blades on it. There is a wheel at the top that catches the wire and pulls it across the bottom wheel where the blades are located. It works very well with low grade wire like appliance cords. I used to use it for that all the time. Sorry I can't post a video as I sold it and bought some granulators. If you look on Newmans site, they have a video of it cutting a lot of different types of cords.
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