How to Cut the Lid off a 55 Gallon Drum in Under 30 Seconds!

There are countless uses for empty drums, but few of them work with the lid still attached. However, there really isn’t an easy way to remove the lid, as the barrels are generally pretty well made and the top is made with durability in mind. There are plenty of methods out there for removing the top, but they generally require either quite a bit of time and some elbow grease, or a big powerful tool to get the job done.

Well this guy has figured out a way to get the lid off in well under a minute using a small tool that many of us have in our toolboxes. With nothing but an air chisel in hand, YouTuber Hubjeep knocks the top out of this drum in seconds, leaving it ready to use for any of the possible projects he could have in mind.

For those who don’t know, an air chisel is basically a small, handheld jackhammer. You can swap the blade for others of different sizes and for use with different materials and use the air-powered chisel to cut nearly anything. The only thing needed to make it work is an air supply, something else most of us have in our garages and shops. As you can see, it makes short work of the steel lid of this drum, dropping it out of the ring at the top in under 30 seconds. We don’t know if Hubjeep is going to make a homemade smoker, a burn barrel, or a Twisterbox toolbox or some other project, but we know with that air chisel in hand he should be able to carve the barrel up as needed in short order.