Wands

[Sylvanite]

I went to a Harry Potter theme party the other night, so I made some wands to pass out as party favors:

Left to right: Zebrawood with Walnut handle, Redheart with Maple handle, Box-Elder with Katalox decoration and handle -- the "(Box) Elder Wand", Spalted Oak with Jatoba handle, Purpleheart with Cherry handle, Red Palm with Cedar handle, Spalted Oak with Padauk handle, Mahogany with (rainbow) Mineral Stained Poplar handle, Curly Maple with Canarywood handle, Pau Ferro with Spalted Pin Oak handle, Eastern Red Cedar with Louro Preto handle, and Lignum Vitae with Teak handle.

Here's a close-up of the "Deathly Hallows" symbol in the handle of the "(Box) Elder Wand" (Box Elder and Katalox segmentation):

and one of the pretty spalting in the pin-oak handle:

 

[thewishman]

I'll bet everyone loved them. Nice materials and variety. The pin oak is my favorite, but the box elder - well who wouldn't want an "unbeatable" wand?

Chris

 

[Rifleman1776]

And, of course, they all have either the hair of the unicorn or feather of the Phoenix bird in the handle. Don't they?
Nice, and nice treats for the kids.

 

[richstick1]

Very nice! Did you turn the handles separately from the "business end"? I made one out of maple and walnut for my daughter - she went as Hermione for Halloween. I was going to post a pic of it, but after seeing yours, I'm almost embarassed!

 

[fuzzydog]

Beautiful collection, some years back I turned a couple for my grandson and at that time I was able to locate a web site that explained the majicial properties of each type of wood. Each of these beauties would fetch $30.00 +.

 

[wudnhed]

Eric, how nice of you and they are beauties!!!!!!!!

 

[Sylvanite]

Originally posted by Richstick

Did you turn the handles separately from the "business end"?

Each wand section has a 1/4" tenon turned on the end that fits in a 1/4" hole drilled in the handle. The wand portion then tapers from a 3/8" shoulder at the handle down to approximately 1/4" at the tip. If I had to do it over, I'd probably make the tenon larger, or just slip-fit the wand into a 3/8" hole. The wands seem prone to break at the tenon.

Anyway, On the first one, I turned the wand, glued on the handle, and then turned the handle (holding the wand near the base in a collet chuck). Subsequent tries, however, I turned the two pieces separately and glued them together after finishing.

For the wand, I turned the tenon, then put it in a collet chuck to shape the remainder. For the handle, I started with a 1/4" hole, faced the drilled end, and then turned it on a mandrel - just as if I were making a closed-end pen.

 

[rhahnfl]

Thanks for sharing!!! They are really cool.

 

[TAFFJ]

Very clever!!

 

[Woodlvr]

Very nice work Eric. How do you do the Deathly Hallows symbol in the handle of the Box Elder wand? Keep up the good work.

Mike

 

[richstick1]

I guess I did mine the hard way - I have no collet chuck, so I glued up a piece of maple for the handle and walnut for the wand with a 1/4" dowel for strength, then turned it as one piece between centers. The collet chuck would definitely be a nicer way to do it. Great work!

 

[Sylvanite]

Originally posted by Woodlvr

How do you do the Deathly Hallows symbol in the handle of the Box Elder wand?

Well, I have a bit of katalox lying around (I don't use it for pens anymore -- the wood moves too much with temperature change), so I ripped a piece into several thin strips for the laminations. I also have a box of rather plain box-elder blanks. I ripped one of those in half, and then ripped each half at a 30 degree angle. I glued those two pieces together with a katalox strip in between, making the central triangle. I then glued 3 katalox strips on the three sides (sanding the edges flush each time). That gave the essential symbol. Then I took 3 more box-elder blanks and ripped them at 30 degrees as close to the diagonal as possible, and glued them on the three sides of the triangle. That yielded a rather odd-shaped glue-up 6 inches long with the deathly-hallows symbol running lengthwise through it. I found the centers and turned it round. Then I cut a short tenon in one end, and parted off a couple of inches. I drilled a hole in the katalox handle and glued them together. Then I turned the entire handle to the desired shape.

The trickiest parts were:
1) finding the exact center of the glue-up, so the symbol came out even all around, and:
2) turning two such dissimilar woods together. Katalox is much, much harder than box elder.

I also didn't have any long pieces of box elder, so the wand is made of two pen-blanks. The double-cross is there to hide the joint.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[Sylvanite]

Originally posted by Richstick

I guess I did mine the hard way - I have no collet chuck, so I glued up a piece of maple for the handle and walnut for the wand with a 1/4" dowel for strength, then turned it as one piece between centers. The collet chuck would definitely be a nicer way to do it.

Well, if I didn't have the collet chuck, I'd still turn the pieces separately. Turning the handle on a 1/4" pen mandrel worked pretty well. It'd be easier to turn just the wand between centers than the wand and handle together. Some of the woods (especially the red palm) flex quite a bit. Long, narrow pieces can be (shall we say) challenging.

 

[chigdon]

Those are great!

 

[richstick1]

LOL - "challenging" is a GREAT word to describe turning a long thin spindle between centers

 

[bjackman]

Great wandwork Eric!
Sorry so late finding your thread.

I especially like your wands with different materials for the handles and shafts.


You might enjoy some of the photos and info here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wandcrafters/?yguid=225145849
Not always a lot of activity, but some good info there.

 

[ahoiberg]

just got done reading the deathly hallows and did a search for 'wands' and wanted to bump this thread. nice work on the wands and thanks for the explanation.