Pumpkin Carving with Power Tools

Pumpkin carving can be less of a chore by tackling it with your power tools. Nothing can replace the finesse needed to carve pumpkins but for some of the tougher jobs or larger pumpkins, a little 12 or 18 volt power can make the job go much faster.

Here are five power tools that can help you with your pumpkin carving.

1. Jigsaw
The jigsaw (shown above) is the perfect tool for cutting the tops off a pumpkin. Just plunge the blade straight into the pumpkin and go for it. We found that turning the pumpkin around the saw instead of moving the saw, works much better.

2. Oscillating Tool
There is a reason this is the fastest growing power tool category. Oscillating tools can do everything and that's no exception when it comes to pumpkin carving. Place a cutting blade on it and you can trim a stem or cut out eyes. Use a circular blade and cut tops out or carve eyebrows. The scraper is perfect for removing the pumpkin guts from the top giving you a smooth surface. You could even use the sander attachment and create some interesting textures on the pumpkin surface. You're only limited by your imagination with this tool.

3. Mini-recip Saw
Our Milwaukee Hackzall is a down-sized version of the popular Sawzall recip-saw which makes it ideal for slicing up a pumpkin. It's grip and size will dice up a pumpkin like butter.

Milwaukee Thermal Imager Camera

The coolest (literally) tool we saw at Milwaukee last week was their thermal imaging camera. We thought infrared laser thermometers were awesome but the thermal imaging camera is a serious piece of high-tech equipment.

Milwaukee gave this tool it's own presentation as we walked into a room with a wall size projection of a thermal view of the room. They had an HVAC display which we could use to identify the warm and cold areas of ducts and machinery. But our group had more fun looking at the walls and each other. Think of the movie Predator and it's vision, that's what this camera shows. It will create a heat map of whatever you point it at, showing the hot areas as read and the cold areas as blue with various other temperatures shades of orange.