Loyd Blankenship - Woodworking for Young Makers: Fun and Easy Do-It-Yourself Projects

Do you like stories about fantastic adventures, fabulous creatures, and magic artifacts? Lets make a wizards wand that you can use with costume play, as a prop for a play, or just as a fun decoration for your room. Making a wizards wand is a great place to begin woodworking because you can make it as simple or as fancy as you want.

There is no right or wrong way when it comes to crafting a wand. In later projects you will have to be precise in your cuts and measurements. Here, though, the only limits are your imagination!

For this project, you can choose to use a wood carving (or whittling) knife or a rotary tool. Either will work, and both are fun to use!

You can find many at arts & crafts stores and hardware stores. Use a steel blade that is less than 4 inches long and fairly narrow ( / inch or smaller) for fitting into tight spaces.

wood carving knife

or

rotary toolhandsaw

or

dovetail saw

When working with any sharp tool, you should be extra careful. Cut away from your hands and body. Wear a protective glove on the hand that is holding the wand while you carve. And have an adult around at all times!

wood for the wandfine steel woolsandpaper
(60, 120, and 220 grit)tung oil

Select a piece of wood that is slightly larger than the size of your desired wand. You can use a handsaw or dovetail saw to cut a dry, solid tree branch that you found on the ground to size. Or you can go to a craft or lumber store and buy a blank. A 12-inch blank of hardwood from the craft store is a great starting place.

Blanks

Lumber stores and craft and hobby shops usually carry an assortment of wood that has already been cut into sections that range from 620 inches long. These pre-formed shapes are ideal for creating a straight, heavy wand, though you will have to sand it down to the right diameter. Some stores may do this for you.

A rotary tool is a handheld power tool that can be used for sanding, grinding, and polishing. A clamp called a collet holds different bitsor removable pieces that do a variety of thingsin place at one end, making it very versatile!

To go with your rotary tool, I recommend the following bits:

-inch drum sander mandrel

60-grit to 240-grit sanding band

/ -inch, 80-grit flapwheel sander

sanding discs

abrasive brushes

abrasive buffs

engraving bits

Use the rubber drum mandrel, which is one of the grippers that goes on your rotary tool, to put on a sanding band. The screw at the tip will expand the mandrel to make the drum fit tightly. If your wand is being made from a tree branch, start sanding at a low speed until you get the feel for it. Make light passes instead of trying to take all the bark off in one go.

Trace the shape of the wood on a large piece of paper (old grocery bags are perfect). Lay the wood on the paper and trace the outline.

The hilt is the part of the wand you hold onto. It should be the widest part of the wood, and it should be designed to give you a comfortable grip.

The shaft stretches from the hilt to the tip. The wand should taper a bit so that the tip is thinner than the base. The shaft can feature whatever designs your imagination can come up with.

Draw lines on the traced sketch to indicate where you will carve and sand away wood to form your unique design features.

Create several designs using different features or spacing until you are satisfied with the look.

If you are using a tree branch as the basis for your wand, you will need to strip the outer bark to expose the sapwood beneath.

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