It’s that time of year again. The 4th of July decorations have been boxed up and the last of the fireworks are lit. With the next big holiday in the States being Halloween, it’s time for all us woodworkers to start working away on our Halloween and Fall projects. One of the many items I start tackling are these wooden jack-o-lanterns made from a cedar fence picket, that can go outside with a battery operated tea candle to light the face.
Below you will find a link to my basic diagram for how I get two jack-o-lanterns out of one 6in wide and 6ft long fence picket from the big box store. Your results may vary based on the fence picket you get. Since these are a fairly inexpensive source of cedar wood in my area, the quality and actual sizes of the picket can vary greatly from one picket to another. Due to the variable number of knots that can be found, I find myself hunting through the piles to find ones with the least knots and try to keep the face of the jack-o-lantern in a knot free area of the board (though sometimes I find the knot can add a bit of character and charm to the face). The below values are in inches and this create a total of 2 wooden jack-o-lanterns that includes 2 face boards, 2 back boards, 4 sides, 2 tops, 2 hat toppers, and then the 2 cut off dog ears of the picket are used for the stems of the jack-o-lanterns. (I like to cut those down some to vary the length/height of the stem for each lantern.) I make them all about the same height, typically, but you could definitely vary the height of each one, depending on the height the face of the jack-o-lantern needs, to bring more depth to multiple ones together. When doing that, you would just need to cut the pieces to length to match the height you choose.
You can get the digital cut list diagram to get started making your own wooden jack-o-lanterns here – Wooden Jack-o-Lantern Cut Diagram Download.
Happy Making!
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