Sharing knowledge for the art of artificial craft pumpkins.
#95756
Hi, I am trying to figure out which is the best bit to use with my router to clean up the shaved areas so I have one even consistent surface for the light to come through. I used a ball sphere bit to shave out the areas.
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This is how it looked initially. As you can see, the light is not consistent in the shaved areas. That is what I want to fix.
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I used another ball sphere bit that was a little bigger, but still not even.
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Any recommendations will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Eric
#95759
Eric - I hope others see this, because there are many other carvers here who are much more experienced with foamies than I am.... but it's the off-season and activity is slow, so I'll just put in my two cents...

When I carve the foam 'kins (and even on reals), I usually remove the paint and shade the larger areas with a Dremel 117 high speed cutter and use the pink or green grinding stones to smooth it out. You can get some nice kits on Amazon or at Harbor Freight with a wide variety shapes and sizes. The grinding stones do a good job of smoothing things out on the larger areas.

If I have fine or intricate areas to shade, I will sometimes just use a swiping motion with the smaller drill bits, like the 1/32" or 3/64".

I'm no expert by any means, and don't carve a lot of foam pumpkins, but these are the bits I use. It just takes some experimentation.

Also put a light in it - I always carve with a clip light (C5 bulb, I think) just dropped inside the pumpkin. An LED flashlight works, too. It's bright and you can get a better idea of how deep you need to go to get the right glow.

Hopefully others with more foam experience with foam will chime in.
#95760
Thanks for the recommendations. I will give those a try and experimentation is the perfect word for when it comes to shaving on real or fake pumpkins. When I first started using the router, it took a little getting used to, figuring out what bits work well and using the different speeds of the router. With any tool, takes practice to learn, but with patience will come understanding.
Cirrus wrote:Eric - I hope others see this, because there are many other carvers here who are much more experienced with foamies than I am.... but it's the off-season and activity is slow, so I'll just put in my two cents...

When I carve the foam 'kins (and even on reals), I usually remove the paint and shade the larger areas with a Dremel 117 high speed cutter and use the pink or green grinding stones to smooth it out. You can get some nice kits on Amazon or at Harbor Freight with a wide variety shapes and sizes. The grinding stones do a good job of smoothing things out on the larger areas.

If I have fine or intricate areas to shade, I will sometimes just use a swiping motion with the smaller drill bits, like the 1/32" or 3/64".

I'm no expert by any means, and don't carve a lot of foam pumpkins, but these are the bits I use. It just takes some experimentation.

Also put a light in it - I always carve with a clip light (C5 bulb, I think) just dropped inside the pumpkin. An LED flashlight works, too. It's bright and you can get a better idea of how deep you need to go to get the right glow.

Hopefully others with more foam experience with foam will chime in.
#95761
Hi, Eric - Just to add to my earlier post - I am sort of assuming when you say "router" that it's probably actually a Dremel-type rotary tool -- that's what I use and what most of the carvers here use to shade... not tryng to split hairs on it, but I just wanted to make sure it was clear what I was referring to in my post :)

Happy carving! I hope to do a little bit myself today! :)