How to Turn a Magic Wand

All good wizards need a trusty magic wand by their side.  But those online stores and places only have replicas, without letting you test the combination that is most in-tune with your wizarding mind.  So being a good and handy wizard, I decided to make myself a magic wand.  All I needed was a lathe, lathe tools, and the proper wood.  I hope you like it and make your own! Comment pictures if you do.

Start by putting your square or round stock in the chuck.  The chuck is essential because you need to part the end off.  I used an ash block, 1.5" x 1.5" x 24" (roughly).  

I started by turning a small section round because that is how big my tool rest is.  Once the part was mostly round, I turned a small section down to it's final round depth.  You will turn this down smaller later, but this is just for a reference.  Use a roughing tool to turn your stock down to this depth, then start shaping with other tools.  To turn it down, simply take off a little at a time, taking off from left-to-right or right-to-left.  You can round as much of the stock that you want.

I measured by eye how big the handle needed to be.  Then from that measurement I divided the wand into the tip and the handle with a sharpie.  Simply turn the lathe on and gently touch the marker to the wood to get an even line all the way around. 

Once you mark your line, use a tool to mark down to your final depth of the shaft.  Just use your roughing tool again to get the entire shaft down to this depth.  If you want, you can taper it to a point, which is what I did. I started to use round-tipped detail tool towards the end.  Once you feel good about the tip, move on to the handle.

There's not a lot of detail to this because it is mostly freeform.  I changed the design a lot after I put the stain on, so this is me at the end of my first time I turned the handle.  I just made a knob at the front and flared the end up.

Once you are happy with the shape of everything, take the frizzy stuff off with sandpaper and get it nice and smooth.  Once it is smooth, take a rag and dab a little wood stain on it (unless you like the color).  Set the lathe to a lower speed so that the finish won't fling off and get all over everything.  Once you do that, you can apply a finish to make it shiny or smooth.  Part the end off with a parting tool once you stain and finish it.  You can sand the little nub off by hand and then just finish the 

When you part the end off, you can dab some stain on the ends, let it dry, and you're all good! Have fun being an official wizard!