RavenClawed Wand Stand – Luna Lovegood Style

My whole family is a bunch of dorks.

I am dorky about old medieval/viking stuff, my wife is a big Potter dork and we both are dorky for Star Wars. It’s probably a good thing my boys are homeschooled cause they are dorky about all of these things by now.

It was our 11th anniversary this year and since we are lucky enough to have whatever we need, we enjoy exchanging goofy gifts. (see my Falconry Glove from 2020)

The 11th year is Steel, one of my favorite mediums. So, I was excited.

We took an unexpected trip to Disney this year and my wife indulged her inner (and outer) dork by procuring a wand from Olivanders. She was chosen by a lovely little wand, slender and perhaps even “swishy”. The end is shaped like a tulip. It was Luna Lovegoods.

It is, dare I say it…fitting.

When we got home she stated she clearly needed a stand on which she could show off her wand, otherwise it would live in a box and that was apparently unacceptable.

So off my mind went.

Scrap mild steel bar

Old piece of firewood

Metal files

Metal cutting bandsaw

Sandpaper

Cold Blue

Q-tips

Rubbing alcohol

Butcher block oil/wax

Epoxy

Perhaps the word I am looking for is symbolism… ssssymbolism.

Harry Potter is full of it and I needed to make the stand reflect both my wife and her house of Ravenclaw.

I decided that a pair of bird claws holding up the wand would be pretty sweet, if one of the more complex choices. But after all, what are anniversaries for if not going the extra mile – plus I may have forgotten one or two so I really try now.

ANYHOW, I searched for vector files that look like something I could recreate in steel and came upon a couple that were not overly complex and could be modified to fit my needs.

I “photoshopped” them (technically I guess I “paint.netted” them but that sounds weird) and removed a few claws/details since I already had ambitious goals and simplifying a bit did not hurt. (See the above for before and after drawings)

I took them, printed them out, made sure I didn’t leave a copy on the printer for my wife to find and grill me about and glued the claws to a piece of scrap mild steel I had.

One bite at a time.

Luckily, I have a decent metal cutting bandsaw. Being so small the claws were pretty trying to cut out cleanly and it took some time but little bit by little bit I got them into roughly claw shapes.

If band sawing was time consuming it was nothing compared to using hand files.

Good lord did this take some time.

It was much quieter though and it helped me work on my patience... which I feel I could use more of.

I suggest a good assortment of files is a worthy investment for anyone who likes to make things from metal. I used primarily a wide flat one, a round one, a smaller square one, and some little needle files, each had the area it worked the best in and it took some trial and error.

The bad thing about files is they take a while to cut into steel.

The good part is you can’t instantly fubar a project like you can with power tools. And I have fubar’d a lot of stuff.

Fubar’d… Fubared? Fubarred?

Someone help me. Is there a proper past tense of FUBAR.

So after getting to final shape and really working the detail to the point I found acceptable I decided to use some cold blue I had leftover from something to really make those claws POP.

I prepped the claws and cold blued all except the talons which I polished up extra bright. I thought it looked pretty snazzy.

I thought about it a lot and decided that the base needed to be 2 things to go with my theme.

1.) imperfect. For some reason wizards can’t figure out a Plum bob or level so nothing they have is square

2.) natural material and Luna approved.

Since I was all out of Erumpent horn or Snarglewolfsnookleberry I opted for a piece of firewood that I deemed too beautiful to burn. I scavenged it from a pile years ago and it is a lovely curly grained piece of walnut that has air dried to perfection.

I slabbed off a piece but left some rough edges to make it look more “wizardy” I did not worry about it being perfectly cut or even quite level. I chiseled recesses for the claws to sit in and after some trial and error I got a setup I thought looked nice.

The lower claw held the wand nicely and it angled up the perfect amount should you need to quickly grab the wand to cast a protection spell.

The whole thing got sanded down to a 400 grit to bring out the grain pattern and colors

Epoxy is a little like my kids. I love it, but it is so messy.

After sanding the wood down to a nice grit I epoxied in the claws. Of course I gooed some of the epoxy over the wood like an idjit but that’s just par for the course.

FWIW I have found that letting it gel up until it is almost cured is the best time to remove it. If you try when it is still liquid it makes a royal mess but if you wait until it hardens completely then sometimes it takes the substrate with it. The goldilocks zone is when it is like cold chewing gum, use a razorblade and it comes right off with very little residue to deal with.

After cleanup from my epoxy mishap I gave it another quick sanding and went onto finishing.

Personally, I like oil finishes on wood, especially this walnut so I covered it in butcher block wax/oil and let it dry then buffed it and did it 2 more times.

There is a slight layer of beeswax and the oil really brings out some of the color variation. The metal, being mild steel, also benefits from the oil and wax treatment.

All said, I am pretty pleased as this was my first go using hand files and it turned out better than I expected.

And more importantly, my lovely wife was both surprised and very happy with it.

Here’s my glamor shot, circa 1000AD

She has chosen…wisely.