And the veneer is very thin and brittle.The veener broke the first time I dropped it. I permanantly affixed the 2 halfs together and wrapped all but the tips with contact paper. It is now very much to my liking, weighty ,flashy and durable.The contact paper can be easily removed and replaced for a change of color( or colour).

I myself use the drum stick wrapped in electrical tape. Then again it all depends on where and who your working for. Parlor,for magicians,street,etc.

Sethb,

I want the wand mostly for cups & balls, but I would also like to use it as an all around prop. (not quite sure what else to use it for yet, besides sponge balls, but it's a learning process)

Thanks for all of the helpful input everyone!!

-Vinny

If you are using a drum stick, please don't wrap it in electrical tape unless you are working the street. Close-up, electrical tape is not very elegant.

Besides, doweling is much less expensive than drumsticks.

If you get a 48 inch dowel (you cen find them at places like Rockler and/or Woodcraft) you can get three nice wands out of it. You can get a really nice 1/2" walnut dowel, 48" long from Rockler for $ 7.59, plus shipping.

Anyone know if you can buy ebony dowels anywhere?

Sean

Vinny,
I've thought about using the wand more, myself. After all, if the magic happens because of the wand, then it should be present for every effect...

I tried again to create another wand. This time I used a dark stained wood (cherry I think)for the shaft and cedar remnants for the tips. The tips came out kinda crooked. It's better than my other wand, but I am still not satisfied. I will continue on in my endevor to create a wand I like. Meanwhile, my wife has agreed to get me the small Telic wand with silver tips as a gift. The way I see it, I can never have too many wands, especially because I am becoming more and more addicted to the cups and balls.

-Vinny

I've looked for them, completely unsuccessfully. Some of the old P&L wands were made of genuine Macassar ebony, which was the best. The stuff we get now for instruments is Gaboon ebony, which isn't quite as good. Ebony is probably on the endagered species list right now.

However, African blackwood and wenge are both good substitutes. You might have to turn your own dowels.

A piece of Gaboon ebony 3/4" x 3" x 24" sells for about $68.00 at Woodcraft Supply. You could get several wands from that. But there is a problem with ebony. Ebony is seldom pure black, especially the stuff we get nowadays. Violin makers use a special dye to blacken ebony. The stuff they use now is black Fiebing's leather dye.

I'm particularly pleased with the ebony Little Don that I got from Jake. He does not dye his ebony. So you see untreated "real" ebony, not some kind of cosmetically altered stuff.

One thing I should say as a caution. Wands are like cups. What's here today, may not be here a month from now. If you see a really nice wand you like, and you can afford it, get it.

It may come up on eBay in a year or two, but you don't want to be the guy who was
saddened because of


The Wand That Got Away!

Wands are another collectible obsession for me!
At the moment I enjoy crafting them myself with the methods discussed above as well as finding odd looking dead roots and branches then taking a dremel to them. I'm also on the hunt for a nice midi wood lathe to add to my shop in hopes of rekindling a passion for woodwork that has been dormant far to long!
Just wait Vinny, it's wands now but you still have to start looking at every cup you see to determine if it is for C&B, a chop prospect or for just plain drinking out of. Then there are the hours spent searching toy stores and party shops for cool balls and loads. Don't pass up the countless hours to be spent getting the elusive monkey fist balls tight and uniform! It's all good and fortunately for me my bride considers this one of the most harmless addictions I have ever had! Keep us posted on your progress!
Mick

Since one of our posters did not understand precisely what I meant when I said that I had looked for ebony dowels and that they are unavailable, let me rephrase that.

There are no ebony dowels for sale.

NONE

ZERO

ZIP

If you want an ebony dowel, you will have to turn it yourself.

Now, let me add this. The ebony we are getting today is not the same grade of ebony that was available 80 years ago, when P&L were making some of their wands from ebony. Unless you buy PREMIUM ebony, you will get ebony that has major flaws in it over a length. I had a wand made for me from ebony. There was a tiny knot in the center of it. It lasted a month. I was able to reglue it. This was not the wand Jim Riser made for me.

The best ebony, which is Macassar ebony is on the CITES list, which means you can't import it. It's like Brazilian rosewood. All the stocks are wood which has been in the country for a long time.

The reason you won't find ebony dowels is that it is a huge waste of wood to turn a dowel from a square piece. If you turn a wand from a 1/2" square piece of ebony, you waste about 25% of the wood you have. That's a lot of wood. When you consider what ebony costs, it's a losing proposition.

So, you have to make the sacrifice on your end and turn it yourself.

African blackwood is much less expensive and is sometimes available in dowels. It's also called grenadillo or grenadilla. It's also tougher than ebony. Chances are, you will have to dye it with Fiebing's leather dye if you want a really black surface.

If someone finds a source of ebony dowels, please let us know. I don't believe, after looking for them for about 20 years, that you will find a source.

Intuitively, at least to me, I would think wands with an embedded weight at each end would handle and spin better.

However, this doesn't seem to be the case in my experience.

Anyone else?

sam

You can do that if you wish, but a really homogeneous material, such as ebony, rosewood, grenadillo, blackwood or brass will have the natural balance that is easily upset if the inserts aren't really precise.

The inertia of a brass wand makes it very easy to do flourishes with.

Is lignum vitae a good type of wood for wands? Quite heavy.
fortasse

Hello everyone,

I finally made a wand I like. It has an aluminum shaft enameled flat black with clear laquered cedar tips. What do you think? Do you think I should leave it as is or should I enamel the tips white?

-Vinny

Link to see my wand:
http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee204......93514790

That wand looks great Vinny, I would leave it as it is.

Tom

Lookin good Vinny and I vote for natural tips!

Lignum vitae is a very interesting wood. Colin Rose has mistakenly translated Lignum Vitae to mean "long life." It actually means "Tree of life" or "wood of life."

Lignum vitae has a greasy feel to it, because it contains a resin that never really dries out. It was used by sailors as a bearing surface for ropes. Sometimes it behaves oddly when it is cut or turned. Its warping characteristics are somewhat unpredictable. I have made artist's mallet heads from it.

It is very dense. It will not float in water.

You used to be able to get black anodized aluminum arrows. I'm not sure if they are still available. Telescoping tubing found in some hobby shops are made in aluminum, and brass, and as the name implies, they telescope. You could start with an oversize brass tube, say 13 inches long. Add to this a 9 inch piece of telesoping brass over the center, and add two two inch long pieces of aluminum telescoping over the tips. Glue everything together You can use some solder melted into the ends (that's the reason to use brass, solder, with flux, will attach easily to brass, but with difficulty to aluminum). Buff/polish everything and add a clear coat to keep it shiny.

If you make a wand out of wood try to find a dowel where the grain is parallel to the length. If the wood splits it will do so along the grain. That's the reason that drumsticks make durable wands. That's another reason to use an arrow shaft, the grain runs in the right direction.

Arrow shafts are generally too small to make decent sized wands.

The telescoping tubing that most hobby shops carry is only 12 inches long. You can get 36 inch lenghths, but few hobby shops carry them.

Aluminum is much easier to solder than most people think. You just need the correct solder and flux, and the proper surface preparation. There is a special solder called "Sta-Brite" which is a low temperature, high strength, silver-bearing solder that is used in the air conditioning industry. They have two kinds of flux. One is used mainly for brass and ferrous metals. The other is called "honey flux" which is used for aluminum. I have seen people solder a copper penny to the bottom of an aluminum beer can with this stuff. It works best with an air-acetylene torch, but will also work with MAPP gas.