Sat Oct 27, 2012 6:23 pm
#73082
Hey guys,
When I got into "serious" pumpkin carving last year, I used a real pumpkin and one of those stencil/tool sets you can get, well, pretty much everywhere, this time of year. It had a scoop, 2 little saws and a plastic awl. Well, after my one and only pumpkin, the awl and both saws, were broken.
So, after that fiasco, I decided that the commercially available tools were junk, so I was going to make something that could withstand years of heavy abuse. So, a trip to Home Depot later, I had built my carving saws, for the following year.
The 3 saw blades, are Bosch jigsaw blades, for wood. I have a large tooth, for cutting through thick areas (like removing the top), a medium blade for general work, and a small blade for detail. The handles used to be a 12" long, 1"dia. dowel, cut down to 3" lengths. They were sanded to shape with a drum attachment on my motor tool (as I own a craftsman, and not an actual Dremel), and finished with 100 grit sandpaper, by hand. Then they were stained and given a coat of shellac. I drilled a hole in the handle, insterted the balde and back filled it with wood putty, to secure it in place.
I have since discovered foam pumpkins. Since my other saws would destroy the foam, I had to switch tactics. The other tools are a #1 hobby knife, with an excel #11 blade, and a #2 hobby knife, with an X-acto #13 micro keyhole saw.
An in addition to those, I have my pounce wheel, for transferring patterns; my grease pencil, so I can write on the pumpkin without it washing off, and the scoop, which is the only surviving tool from the original kit.
And I store them all in a little cigar box, that I found when I was visitng my parents, one day. Thankfully, my mother is a hoarder and never throws anything away. She doesn't smoke, but she collects cigar boxes.
So, I was wondering if anyone else did something similar - either design a kit, or adapt an already existing tool, or anything along those lines.
-Fred
When I got into "serious" pumpkin carving last year, I used a real pumpkin and one of those stencil/tool sets you can get, well, pretty much everywhere, this time of year. It had a scoop, 2 little saws and a plastic awl. Well, after my one and only pumpkin, the awl and both saws, were broken.
So, after that fiasco, I decided that the commercially available tools were junk, so I was going to make something that could withstand years of heavy abuse. So, a trip to Home Depot later, I had built my carving saws, for the following year.
The 3 saw blades, are Bosch jigsaw blades, for wood. I have a large tooth, for cutting through thick areas (like removing the top), a medium blade for general work, and a small blade for detail. The handles used to be a 12" long, 1"dia. dowel, cut down to 3" lengths. They were sanded to shape with a drum attachment on my motor tool (as I own a craftsman, and not an actual Dremel), and finished with 100 grit sandpaper, by hand. Then they were stained and given a coat of shellac. I drilled a hole in the handle, insterted the balde and back filled it with wood putty, to secure it in place.
I have since discovered foam pumpkins. Since my other saws would destroy the foam, I had to switch tactics. The other tools are a #1 hobby knife, with an excel #11 blade, and a #2 hobby knife, with an X-acto #13 micro keyhole saw.
An in addition to those, I have my pounce wheel, for transferring patterns; my grease pencil, so I can write on the pumpkin without it washing off, and the scoop, which is the only surviving tool from the original kit.
And I store them all in a little cigar box, that I found when I was visitng my parents, one day. Thankfully, my mother is a hoarder and never throws anything away. She doesn't smoke, but she collects cigar boxes.
So, I was wondering if anyone else did something similar - either design a kit, or adapt an already existing tool, or anything along those lines.
-Fred