Slashdot Mirror
Dremel Pumpkin Carver
GimpyMcJackass writes "With Halloween just around the corner, Dremel has "developed" the ultimate pumpkin carver set. It actually looks like it's just your normal dremel (although it's translucent orange) with a 191 high speed cutter and some fancy patterns. Of course, if you already have a Dremel and cutter (or reasonable knock-off of either/both), then you can just download some patterns."
Goatse Pumpkin (nws duh)
I love it when a company releases a product specificly for overkill. But I love the idea of hacking through a pumkin with ease, just don't let the kids use it. "Mom, look what I carved into danny's head!"
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
if you already have a Dremel and cutter (or reasonable knock-off of either/both), then you can just download some patterns.
not anymore
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
You heard it here first.
It's a neat idea, but using a small-diameter, high-RPM cutting tool to carve a pumpkin essentially guarantees the immediate area will be coated in a fine orange spray.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
... in fact, a fellow nerd/geek/hacker said I should add a Dremel Tool to our wedding gift registry. Best thing we've got.
But back on topic, the Dremel is certainly an excellent tool to use on firm pumpkin flesh. An electric knife is just too flimsy (but are perfect for carving the turkey, so spend the US$20 and get yourself one already), and santokus have blades that are just a bit too thin (but are wonderful for vegetables and fruits, so get yourself one already). You can use a chef's knife, but given all of the static force required to get through pumpkin flesh, it's just an accident waiting to happen (but they're wonderful for getting through bones and for when you've lent your santoku to someone, so get one already). Go Dremel.
(If you visit my kitchen, you'll see I even have the Black-and-Decker modification to the pepper grinder, inspired by Alton Brown.)
It's already slowing down fast...
-----
TOOLS
#764-01 Pumpkin Carving Kit
Pumpkin kits are available at Lowes stores, or contact Dremel directly at 1-800-4-DREMEL to order your pumpkin carving kit today!
For those looking to carve more advanced pumpkins than the traditional jack o'lantern this Halloween, the Dremel Pumpkin Carving Kit allows fast, easy carving of spectacularly sculpted pumpkins. Using the templates provided (or one of the thousands of pre-made templates available on the market), the Pumpkin Carving Kit makes carving intricate pumpkin designs as easy as tracing a drawing.
Create pumpkins that are sure to impress the entire neighborhood!
Join the Dremel Owner club chatroom to share and learn about other Dremel owners carving pumpkins.
Product Features:
6V 2-speed cordless rotary tool
Runs on 4 - AA alkaline batteries
6,000 / 12,000 RPM
191 High-Speed Cutter - ideal for carving intricate designs
Six bonus templates included
funniest. pumpkin. evar!
Now this is what I call overkill :)
I love it when the /. effect is ironic. :)
I have less than 3 days until the greedy beggars will be at my house and I haven't gotten candy, pumpkins, let alone carved the unbought pumpkins.
/.'d the site. IF I'm lucky, perhaps the patterns page will load by saturday and then I'll have a few hours to scramble and have a sorry excuse for a carved pumpkin on my doorstep. /rant
I *finally* find a constructive use for my dremel and you people have
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Wow! We Slashdotted Dremel! I'll be damned.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
..into pies rather than jack-o-lanterns. Of course this requires a sophisticated cooking tool (mom), but the end result is worth it.
None of this dremel stencil business - what you all need is a Trogdor stencil for your pumpkin! http://www.homestarrunner.com/ween_stencils.html
Clicky. Enjoy!
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I used my dremel tool to carve a pumpkin 3 years ago. I wish I could find the pics to post. Let me give you some advice. DONT DO IT. And if you do: DO IT OUTSIDE. I tried to be good and I set up some large boxes on either side of the pumpkin to catch the inevitable orange spray. I was pleased with the result of my pumpkin but my entire kitchen looked like it had been airbrushed with pumpkin paint or something. My wife was not amused. But my kids loved it. Grr if I could only find a pic. It was a cat's face and the dremel allowed me to cut some very intricate details like whiskers!
If something exists that does not need a creator (god) then why must the cosmos need one?
In my kitchen you'll see an electric drill with steel wire brush next to the coffee machine. I use it in some really heavy-duty dishwashing (like before and after each bbq).
And here I thought when it said "download a pattern" it meant strapping down the pumpkin and uploading the pattern and poof an arm would carve it out.
C'mon, wouldn't you rather hack on the code than carve it physically? j/k
Just to confuse whether you should give funny or insightful points...
How many have noticed that people who could design a system (or a pattern) that could automatically carve your pumpkin couldn't do it by hand?
There: Something at a specific location.
Their: Owned by someone.
Please make sure your english compiles.
...to carve pumpkins such as these ones?
God, root, what is difference ?
I saw This and thought of you.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Here is an example of what they can look like.
sigs, as if you care.
I'm sure they did some research on this but I am confused on the bit selection. For those that can not get directly to the site, the 191 bit is a carving bit, a standard Dremel tool bit with the grooved ball on the end. I've used that for carving and material removal before but for a pumpkin? A pumpkin is at least 1 inch thick. You'd have to push the bit in and out or repeatedly go over the same spot over and over again until you finally break through. I would think the bit used to cut drywall would work better. It is more like a drill bit but has sharp edges and less twist. You can cut through the whole way in one pass. I hate to admit it but I actually used a jig saw on a pumpkin before, it turned out pretty good but I could not get the fine details with it. In rcent years I used those kits from the grocery store with the small hand saws. Work good but my hands cramp up. I'll try the Dremel tool this year.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
this was on gizmodo about 8 hours ago, slashdot is behind the times
What about Easter?
Those damn bunny eggs are just asking for it!
I use a 12amp Milawakee Sawzall to carve my pumpkins.. And then, in Halloween fashion, I go cut everyone up that's in my zone of extension cord. It usually makes for a scary night!
--- We need more Ron Paul!
GRUMPKINS
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
imagine a beawolf cluster of... aww nevermind.
I almost used the drywall bit this year, but it somehow vanished in my basement. I have the one you describe, but figured it would be a waste of time.
So I used a paring knife instead and it took and hour. Next year...
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Sounds to me like slashdotters might have an unfair advantage at those haloween pumpkin carving contests...
October 27, 2004.
Another internet fetish is born.
Witness the magic people, this is how it happens.
Get out your light saber and let er rip. Useful for carving other things besides pumpkins. Lasers work well too!
I had never heard of using a Dremel for this sort of thing until a week or two ago, when my wife went to help a family member carve some gourds for decorational use in a wedding. (Didn't work out, but that's beside the point.) She took my Dremel and I found out later -- one of my first concerns was whether it was all gummed up or not. She said it's fine, but I still need to verify that. :-/
No Laughing Allowed!
Stores that sell the seasonal gourd could also offer custom carving (laser would be better, though) designed by the kids that accompany the parents to the grocery store. What to do with the sprayed pumpkin guts? Duh! Collect, distill and sell as pumpkin wine for next year so Dad can sit at home throwing candy from the front door as he gets slowly pissed (not having had to do the artwork himself)!
Dear Slashdot:
The stencils provided on our web site are meant to be used by the Pumpkin Carver Set ONLY. Any attempt to use these stencils with your existing Dremel equipment is considered to be a breach of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's circumvention provisions, and will be dealt with under the fullest extent of the law.
Sincerely,
Dremel Inc Legal
Sent via DMCA-O-Matic v1.0.
This doesn't seem like the right tool for the job.
The pumpkin I did this year was done with a cheap little set from Walmart that has a tool which is basically a handle with a blade somewhere between a coping-saw blade and a scroll-saw blade. It's about 3" long.
The blade was not long enough to cut through a good sized (16" diameter) pumpkin's shell for diagonal cuts.
The Dremel tool is much shorter than that, so there's no way it could work.
Besides, a nice pattern requires some pretty fine detail work - you're going to slip with a powertool if you're not well practiced.
If you had to do a large number of carvings that wouldn't be seen up close you might want a roto-zip tool which has a longer shank. I've got the Porter Cable and it works pretty well.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Sure, I guess this is cool for the "Tool Time" crowd.
What I don't get: what's the point of carving a pumpkin if you're just going to use a template? Isn't this like buying a standard costume instead of making your own? I mean, sure, I enjoy the glut of "sexy catwoman" costumes as much as the next guy. But it just seems to me that the fun of Halloween is to be a little creative on your own.
Here's some pumpkins that my GF & I carved a couple years back. Just us and a couple of knives, baby!
Now, I do think it would be cool if you designed a template in a CAD program and spit that into a robot or high-powered laser rigged to carve the pumpkin for you! A dremel and a template just isn't excessive enough...
It doesn't appear that the Dremel page is quite yet Slashdotted, but it is very sloooow loading.
Since I'm in a mood of helping Taco, CowboyNeal, Tim et al with Slashcode...
How about a little notation appended to the end of Front Page articles indicating that a site has been 'dotted. Maybe a quick ping and a response time -- although depending upon your location that may or may not be reflective your ability to reach it -- but it would give a feel.
One, we readers who should know better -- but sometimes don't -- wouldn't waste time trying to hit the main link. Two, this might reduce the "dottedness" of the poor site by stemming the tide a bit. If it's a big machine on a big pipe, the blast away, gentle readers.
the future is here, it is just not evenly distributed - w. gibson
oooo!
;-)
you sir, are a gentleman in your own right.
These patterns, a larger-than-normal potato gun (converted to shoot those small pumpkins) and I'll be ready for those greedy little beggars
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
In Soviet Russia pumpkin carves you!
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. Add Bunny to your signature
(> <) to help him achieve world domination.
couldn't all those pumpkins have been used to feed starving hungry people?
It's a neat idea, but using a small-diameter, high-RPM cutting tool to carve a pumpkin essentially guarantees the immediate area will be coated in a fine orange spray.
As opposed to a large industrial robotic pumpkin carver?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
There's some neat Homestar Runner stencils available, too.
Anyway, the Dremel is great if all you want to do is scour a pattern into the skin of a pumpkin, but none of the bits (that I've been able to find) are long enough to actually cut a hole in an average pumpkin. On top of that, even at the lowest speed, you end up with pumpkin paste and orange mist.
At least, IME. The best tool I've found is indeed one of those cheapo pumpkin carving sets with dayglow handles and rigid, roughly serrated knives -- usually one thick, and one thin. We got one this year that came with a rigid spatula that worked really well, too.
Even so, I wish Dremel would come out with an extra-long, pumpkin-specific bit.
I used the flex shaft adapter, and the sideways cutting bit that's designed for drywall.
The UConn Engineering dorm representative pumpkin was designed and carved by me... the words "Pumpkin Pi" carved around the crown, and the midsection of the pumpkin had 3.141592654..." spiraling around it. It took a long time to do, and made a mess, but it was a damn good pumpkin. It didn't win the competition, but it should have.
I've never carved one without the Dremel since.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
Slightly on-topic:
A friend of mine carved George Bush and John Kerry into pumpkins. Definitely worth checking out if you want a few laughs...
Kerry looks scarier on pumpkin than he does in person.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Ahem?
I'm non-US person and don't celebrate halloween. To here where I am standing this whole article looks a lot like an advertisement for a product desingned to be rip-off. (Buy a DREMEL KIT to carve a pumkin once a year? Gimme a break...)
Now, then. I go get my first cup of coffee this morning and look at the Lunar eclipse.
Bot Assisted Blogging
I don't know what sort of scary interdimensional time warp decoration you have in your front yard, but at my house, I've still got 4 days.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
From What tools don't work well:
Dremel tool / Roto-sip - Man, I thought these two would be great at carving. I even bought a "carving" tool for my dremel. I had high hopes. Unfortunately, I never considered the fibrous nature of the pumpkin. As you try to carve a straight line using a spining carving tool, it will slide through some spots and then snag a fibrous spot and jerk to one side. These two tools just don't work. Use a jig saw for carving and you'll be much happier. The in and out motion is much easier to use.
According to them, the best tools are the Sawzall, Jigsaw, Router, and Ice Cream scoop.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
"How about a little notation appended to the end of Front Page articles indicating that a site has been 'dotted. "
Or maybe the health meter from Doom?
Two things then.
1) Which is the best Dremel to buy?
2) Wouldn't freezing the pumpkin before carving make it easier?
Been there, done that, the pumpkin doesn't stain and washes out rather easily.
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
My wife and I carved pumpkins last weekend. Ever the geek I bought a spiral cutting bit for my Dremel. My wife made do with a potato peeler (for the eye gouging end) and a knife.
:(
The Dremel sucked for cutting out the faces. It, as others have mentioned, sprays orange rind everywhere, and is very hard to control. Plus you don't get a clean cut through the flesh. The edges wind up all fuzzy and gross instead of having that nice clean look that you get with a knife.
The Dremel was, however, very good at beveling all the edges back 45 degrees so the light could shine through better. It made quick work of the flesh behind the rind.
My wife's pumpkins turned out way better
Neil
essentially guarantees the immediate area will be coated in a fine orange spray.
Wow... just like tubgirl, right? (hey if the goatse pumpkin didn't get -1 troll, this better not either)
I had trouble getting the pumpkin pattern files so this may help others.
t
http://asleson.org/pumpkin_patterns.tar.gz.torren
As most others have mentioned, I discovered quickly that it wasn't great for eating away the flesh, but it was helpful as far as drilling and making a few precise cuts with minimal pressure. Here was the results: Gollum
With a gimp autocarve plug-in.
wish i had seen this a couple days ago
u mpplans2.html
i did a Bob Marley pumpkin this weekend. i didn't go all the way through the pumpkin to the inside, just got about 7/8 inch deep. pattern here http://www.fabulousfoods.com/holidays/halloween/p
i printed it out at 150%, stuck the paper to the pumpkin with pins, and used an exacto to cut marker lines for the face into the p-kin. then used the cutter tool - pic here http://www.hobbylinc.com/gr/dre/dre561.jpg - to cut in. it's 1/8 thick so i couldnt make corners or tight spots but it turned out ok. i guess i should get a pic of it online
you are one goofy-lookin' sonofabitch!
If you like this sort of thing, here's a Go Bush pumpkin as seen at this year's Keene Pumpkin Festival. We only got 27-some-odd thousand pumpkins lit this year. Game 1 of the Series in Sox country on the same night... Oh, well, another record next year, assuming the Sox win isn't a sign of the apocalypse.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Real men carve their pumpkins with .22lr.
Some people like me are such atrocious artists that we're lucky to be able to carve three triangles to make two eyes and a nose. Just because you use a template doesn't mean it isn't satisfying to create a really cool looking pumpkin. My pumpkin would look like crap otherwise, and then I've wasted an hour and made a mess to produce a crappy looking pumpkin.
This tool could be useful for World of Warcraft Pumpkin Contest.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
"I was thinking about the life of a pumpkin. Grow up in the sun, happily entwined with the others, and then someone comes along, cuts you open and rips your guts out."
I didn't see much of a problem in the traditional method of cutting shapes. I *did*, however, see a need to improve the process of removing the pumpkin guts.
What you'll need:
1 spaghetti spoon (forked thing to serve spaghetti)
1 cordless drill/screwdriver
3 3-inch strands of weed eater cord
Run the weed eater cord strands through the hole in the top of the spaghetti spoon and load both ends of the strands into the drill. Tighten them down.
After you've cut the top out of the pumpkin, you can use this contraption to entangle, strip, and scrape a LOT of guts out.
This is just one more way you can geek out your Halloween!
These patterns will freak you out. Here is my attempt at one of them. I used a cordless drill, but didn't think of wrecking my dremel.
heh, still working my way through the 88 hour farscape marathon on my TiVo, just saw the episode the other day where they all ended up on Earth during haloween and one of them had carved a jack-o-lantern with the face of scorpious. I thought that design would be great!
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
I carved a Darth Vader-lantern a few Halloweens ago using a pattern that I photoshopped together. There was only one actual cut so that the blade of the lightsaber would shine brightly, but it took about two hours to take the rind off of the rest of the pattern. Does anyone know if a Dremel (or other motorized tool) would expedite this process?
I've been carving detailed pumpkins old-school style--knife and spoon--for years now. Some of the scariest characters to date:
AshcroftPumpkin
YoursTrulyPumpkin
This year's pumpkin is CheneyPumpkin. Finished it last night, haven't had a chance to post pictures yet.
***Foucault is watching you..***
http://www.rotozip.com/
Ok- I worked for them for a while, and they USED to have a pumpkin carving contest for a while- Back when they were a cool local company before their patent running out and Bosch bought them.
They used the cordless model with a Spiral Cut bit. The one you pointed to is a Drywall bit designed to ride the edge of a socket box. The Spiral Cut will cut all the way to the end of the bit.
This is for if you want to go all the way through.
And I do suggest that you do this outside instead of in your kitchen- it will be a bit messy. (but ohhh sooo fun)
There's an alternate form that is sold with different attachments as a tool for grinding down dogs' nails instead of having to use clippers. It's a total piece of s**t. It runs on 4 AA batteries. If it just needed to sit there and spin without touching anything, it might be fine, but if you actually press it against something--you know, to accomplish something useful--the tiny motor can't handle it. I was trying to grind my dogs nails for just a minute or two, and the thing got really hot and then stopped working. I took the batteries out, and they were too hot to touch. After the thing had cooled down, I put the batteries back in and tried again later. When I tried to grind the nails again, it just got hot and died again.
Basically this orange Dremel that runs on batteries it junk. Get a real Dremel if you want, but I guess they don't sell that pumpkin attachment separately.
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
if you cut the bottom out of the pumphin.
It is easier to clean, and you can place the jack-o-lantern over the candle.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
An even better solution could be just to sit at your computer and carve a virtual pumpkin.
no cuts.
no mess.
no rot.
I've used a reciprocating power keyhole saw quite successfully as a pumking carving tool. Never thought of using a Dremel on something as, well, squishy as a pumpkin.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
That same GoatSe pumpkin pic linked from the Official Dremel Pumpkin Kit vs The Google Cache
umm... am I the only one being goatsecxd by a pumpkin at dremel.com?
e 2.asp?SKU=764-01.
seeing it at both: http://dremel.com/html/home_fr.html (click on the Pumpkin Carving Kit) and http://www.dremel.com/productdisplay/tool_templat
Don't see it? Some friends didn't either... screenshots: here and here.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.