https://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/harry-potter-character-wands • Posted by Miss Captain Cosplay
Looking for a cheap wand project that gives you more freedom than hot glue? You came to the right place. Essentially this project involves just wooden dowels and clay, but I'll help fill in the blanks during this step-by-step tutorial.
Looking for a cheap wand project that gives you more freedom than hot glue? You came to the right place. Essentially this project involves just wooden dowels and clay, but I'll help fill in the blanks during this step-by-step tutorial.
For starters, what you'll need are a drill, coarse AND fine sandpaper, pocket knife, and a dowel. The dowel can be whichever width you decide will best fit your project, but for my wands I used 3/8 X 48 in.
Use the saw blade on your pocket knife to cut your wand to size.
My wands are 16 inches long, but I have a wand replica that I purchased that is 14 3/4 inches long. You'll have to eyeball the proper ratio depending on the width of your dowel.
Now you'll need to switch over to the standard blade on your pocket knife.
Use your knife to shave the end of the wand to a gradual tip. It doesn't have to be perfect. We'll smooth it out in the next couple of steps.
Place the uncarved end of your dowel in the drill. Make sure it's tight and secure.
Wrap the coarse sandpaper around the tip of your dowel. Carefully turn on the drill as you move the sandpaper up and down. The drill works almost like a pottery wheel for your wand.
Repeat step 7 with the fine sandpaper. This will smooth out the scratches made by the rough sandpaper.
To smooth out the tip of your wand, rub the rough sandpaper and then the fine sandpaper over the tip. This is what my wands looked like after the sanding.
Now your going to make your clay for the wand handles. You can use polymer clay, but for those of you who don't want to pay the high price for polymer, here's a little recipe for something almost as good. This clay is called bread dough.
You'll need to take 3 slices of white bread and cut off the crust. Tear the 3 slices into small pieces and put them in a Ziploc bag. Next add 3 tablespoons of tacky glue to the bread in the bag.
Zip the bag and mash the contents together. Once mixed, knead the dough in your hands. The finished product should look something like this. For future projects you can add food coloring to dye the dough. I left mine white because I'm going to paint it. Also, the bread dough will not mold. I have a trinket I made out of this stuff years ago and it still looks like it just dried. You can add three drops of lemon juice if you're paranoid but it'll work either way.
Sculpt the dough around the end of your dowel. This is where this project becomes time consuming. When you're done, let your wand dry overnight. It takes a while to completely harden, but if you let it dry overnight it will be hard enough to paint.
Now all you have to do is paint your wand. It'll only need about two coats. When it's dry, challenge your friends to a duel to see who is the true master of magic. Expelliarmus!