Ollivander's Apprentice

Here's my attempt to reproduce at home (and fairly cheaply) the style of wands sold by the worthy Master Ollivander. There are a few sites out there where you can buy lovely wands of exotic woods with turned handles. They look great. They are also a tad expensive for me. So I took a try at creating my own. Instructions below.

These are the finished product. I used acrylic paint and varnish to color the wood and give it a bit of a shine. Wood stains and polyurethane varnish would work well, too.

For these wands you will need:

• smooth wood dowelling
• sculpy in a color you like
• sandpaper
• file
• whittling knife
• wood stain or varnish of choice

1. I started with some wood dowelling bought at the craft store - 99 cents for 3 feet worth, which yields about 3 wands when cut up.
2. Cut the dowelling with a hacksaw into the length you want - anywhere from 7 to 12 inches.
3. Whittle the point into a tapered, rounded (blunt!) tip. No sharp points, safety first! If knives make you nervous, use a coarse file and rasp the end round and smooth. I noticed the wands used in the Harry Potter movies are all very blunt on the end.
4. File away any roughness and then sandpaper the dowel smooth.
5. Roll out a bit of sculpy and form it around the lower end of the dowel into a handle. Shape as desired. Go crazy and have fun. Use multiple colors if you like or add textures. If you wish to tuck something magical like a unicorn hair into the "core" of the handle, now is the time to do it.
6. Bake in a 275 degree oven for 10-20 minutes. Note: sculpy hardens as it cools. Do not overcook at higher temperatures! See cautionary tale below.
7. Remove from oven and let cool.
8. Stain the wood of the dowelling if you like and finish with a coat of urethane or acrylic craft varnish. You do not have to varnish the handle.
9. Take on Lord Voldemort or any other nasty wizard in the neighborhood.

Total cost per 3 wands: about $3.00 US. + a little more if you buy wood stain or varnish. A little package of colored Sculpy is $1.99 at the local craft store and it will make handles for 4-5 wands. The examples to the right are how wands look before staining and finishing. They also make something called "glitter varnish" which is clear acrylic varnish with optical glitter mixed in. I found it in the craft section of the art store. The effect is very cool! I did my most recent batch of wands with it and I think they looked pretty neat. The glitter really sparkles in the light. Acrylic varnish is very nice since it cleans up with water and is relatively nontoxic. In the USA, Minwax makes a line of acrylic wood stains which also clean up with water. I've tried them and they are very nice.

Click on the small image to see a larger photo of the wands made with optical glitter.
New as of 10/31/03: Since I found myself lacking a wand for Halloween this year, I made one based on Professor Snape's wand. For larger photos and details, click here or on the image.

The First Try was a Flop The instructions on the Sculpy package said to "bake for 10-20 minutes in oven at 275 degrees F." So I did. The wand's handle felt soft after I pulled it out of the oven after 20 minutes... and I thought, "darn, needs a few more minutes", turned the oven back on, put the wand in the oven, and did some email. Twenty minutes later I smelled something like a combo of hot wood and plastic coming from the kitchen. It turns out I mistakenly put the oven back on at 375 degrees F. Oops. Sculpy does NOT like high temperatures. The sculpy turned black and puffed up, then collapsed after cooling - it looked like a blasted, ugly cinder. It stank, too. My prototype wand ended up looking like it belonged to someone who fought evil Lord Voldemort and lost. The moral of the story? Pay attention to the oven temperature and don't overbake.

Created 7/02
Updated 1/1/03