How To Carve A Pumpkin With Power Tools

After years of painting pumpkins, and carving them from pumpkin carving patterns, carving an authentic jack-o-lantern can kind of feel trite. Learning how to carve a pumpkin is a rite of passage. And sure, a pumpkin carving party with the family, complete with fun themes, is a great way to start getting excited about Halloween, but how many years have you been hosting those? If you're ready to push your pumpkin carving skills to the max, try carving a pumpkin with your power tools. Yes, you heard us right, your power tools.

Thanks to Mr. Handyman, you can ditch the dollar store carving kit and make a fun pumpkin:

• Cut Off the Top: Using a jigsaw blade is just like using a kitchen knife, but with more power. Plunge the blade into the top of the pumpkin at a 45 degree angle, move in a circular motion and watch how quick and easy it is to open up the pumpkin.
• Gut the Pumpkin: The Pumpkin Gutter tool saves 20 minutes of digging out the gooey center. Simply insert the gutter into your drill, tighten, and make mincemeat of your pumpkin guts.
• Mini Pumpkin Bats: After spray-painting mini pumpkins black, use a chisel to cut slips for wings and drill holes with bolts as eyes. You can put a screw up top so you can hang a dozen of these around your front door.
• Advanced Carvers: One of the biggest raves in pumpkin carving is to chip away the flesh of the pumpkin into a carving. Large woodworking chisels are a good for removing the top layer of skin, or for removing larger areas of a design. Smaller sized chisels work well for carving intricate designs in your pumpkin.
• Perfectly Circular Eyes: Coring bits are a great way to make perfectly circular eyes. Simply insert the coring bit into your drill, make marks on the pumpkin so that the eyes are spaced evenly. You can also use coring bits in combination with spade bits to make intriguing circular patterns.