John Benson just got his shiny new iPad 3G and he’s rather excited to try it out. But the thing is, the iPad uses the rather newfangled MicroSIM and as everyone is aware of by now, those things aren’t really available everywhere just yet. I failed to mention, he lives in the UK.

At this point I’d probably give up and use wifi until MicroSIMs become available where I am and rant about how much I wasted all that extra money for an iPad 3G. Good thing Mr. Benson didn’t give up.

He was able to convert an ordinary Vodafone SIM card into a MicroSIM, and he did it with – you won’t believe this – a chopping board, a meat cleaver and a pair of scissors. I know, I know. I can’t believe it myself. But he was able to cut the SIM card into the required dimensions without ruining the contact points.

He says on his blog:

The only parts that matter to us are the contacts which are common to the MicroSIM and SIM.  Electronically, the SIM and MicroSIM are the same so we can cut the rest away and not worry (so long as we are careful).

Basically, you have to line up the MicroSim on top of the bigger SIM card and make sure that the two center lines are in place. You can use the meat cleaver to create a guide line, then use the scissor to cut off the extra edges off the SIM.

Granted, you will need steady hands to make this work. But until MicroSIMS become more prevalent, this nifty little hack would do.

You can read the complete instructions (with pictures!) over at JohnBenson.net