Splitting a circle up evenly

Draw circle

Pull 2 guides for center

Draw a rectangle using the thicknes for your gap

Center rectangle on guides (recomend using smart guides on)

Rotate Tool

Option click on guides center, and enter 72° = 360/5)

CMD D to make 4 more copies

Select All

Pathfinder >>Minus front

Not sure what your second question is? Try the knife tool to split up your circel freehand, click and hold the eraser to to find the knife tool.

Josh,

Or you may, with no drawing/transforming at all:

1) Create a Polar Grid (Polar Grid Tool bundled with the Line Tool) with 5 Radial Dividers and no Concentric ones, size as the circle,

2) Select the Radial Divider Group and set the Stroke Weight to the desired gap width,

3) Object>Path>Outline Stroke,

4) Also select the circular path and Pathfinder>Minus Front (Subtract from shape area in older versions, maybe holding Alt/Option),

5) (Re)set the Fill colour (using the option at the bottom of the Toolbox).

Or use a pie chart with 5 equal slices. Then Jacob's method

I'd use Steve's method....

Simply ungroup and remove the 1% slices if needed.

100%/5 = 20% per slice - 1% for spacing = 19% per slice with alternating 1% gaps.

You can also try using this method in the video

http://www.wadezimmerman.com/videos/FiveSectionCircle.mov

BTW on the pc to draw a shape such as an ellipse from the center you hold down the control key.

Josh,

Ah.

You may quite easily:

1) Place a vertical line with the Line Tool, at 1/5 W from the left, Stroke weight equalling the desired gap,

2) Object>Path>Outline Stroke,

3) Object>Transform>Move a copy 3 times by 1/5 W,

4) Select everything and Pathfinder>Minus Front.

This will leave you with 5 simple paths, for easy application of 3D.

You can draw a rectangle at the top and bottom or left and right of the circle and then make a 4 step blend

Then expand the blend and eliminate the rectangles at the extremities

Then use the pathfinder to minus front

Josh,

If you do what Wade said, remember to rotate by 90 degrees.

Or just make the blend left to right as I already wrote in the first line of my response.

Josh,

I just rediscovered this thread, after having overlooked it, and realized my overlooking of the crucial left to right option mentioned post #8, as pointed out in post #10; the right wording in post #9 would have been:

If you do what Wade showed, remember to rotate by 90 degrees.

It is easier to look at a drawing, but sometimes full reading (and understanding) is better.

It has occurred to me that a literal interpretation of the OP and post #6 may be that the circle should be cut, but nothing should be carved out of it.

This would lead to a quite different solution, which may be done in a number of ways, the one shown below being silly but fun to make:

1) Create the circle,

2) Create a vertical line at one fifth from the left side (line Tool is fine), longer than the circle is high,

3) Move a copy of the line thrice by one fifth,

4) Join adjacent endpoints to create a single meander path of the four lines,

5) With only the path selected, Object>Path>Divide Objects below,

6) Move the slices apart (may be done four/two/one at a time with Object>Transform>Move).

Here shown for a circle without and with stroke: