[Foramguy]

Hi all,

I've been carving pumpkins since I was a kid (I'm 26 now) and I just joined ZP and carved a Mario pumpkin last night. My pumpkins look great but, being a huge perfectionist, I always manage to find flaws. Every year when I carve there are a couple of questions in my mind that have never been answered to my satisfaction:

1. What is the "correct" way to saw into the various parts of the pattern? I always try to stay perpendicular to the surface of the pumpkin on every part of the pattern but still end up with parts that just do not look right to me.

2. When the peices of the pumpkin are pushed out, there are always little stringy parts that hang out into the carved area. I always clean them up and it takes forever. Is there an easy way to clean them up or avoid them altogether?

[Zombie Pumpkins!]

Carving with the saw perpendicular sounds about right to me. And then... if I may copy and paste from my own Terrifying Tips page:

Final Touches
Once you've removed all of the cut pieces, look your design over and compare to the paper pattern. Placing a flashlight inside the pumpkin will allow you to see the openings clearly. If some areas don't look right, you can use the detail saw (or x-acto blade) to carefully trim the inside edges of any excess flesh. Trimming in at an angle will allow more light to come through.



Regarding stringy parts, this was mentioned a little bit in this recent thread.

[GUS]

I use an unmounted low energy led outdoor floodlight precisely for this purpose (daft as it sounds) ..cold light & masses of it show up the bad & the good cuts instantly..

That said don't get hyper critical because you've put so much energy into it you notice more about it than the casual "in awe" observer.