Original Video: How to make a wand

Good fine afternoon fellow YouTubers. Before I go run some errands I figured I'd stop and shit chat with you for a bit. So I decided to put 12 wands in my batch and I still need sandpaper. I've been trying to get the last couple of days but I keep getting distracted. That's my fault for the most part, but that's not a problem because I'll be going to make a wand you better off getting real sticks you better off getting real sticks to make them real sticks to make them. Anybody can take hot glue and a chopstick. Like I said, you too, but I like to get the sticks that I need for my wands. This is, as you can see before I've even carved it, this is a nice standard length for a wand. The bark is relatively fresh. You're going to need either a knife and some sandpaper or what I like to use is a bark carving knife and some many snippers for sniffing smaller branches. Now the subtle art of wand making can be quite rewarding. It's a great hobby to get into if you're looking to, you know, explore your creative side. And, um, Explore your creative side and These would go a lot quicker but a lathe would make a lot more mess so this method YouTube may take longer but this is all I like to make wands I'll get a branch a stick if you will and and if you will. And, uh, yeah. Go ahead and snip. And see where do I want to put the tip on this? Gotta hold the stick and kind of determine which end would make the tip. I've noticed that this end is a little bit fatter and it gets kind of skinnier as it goes towards this side. So to get these ready for sandpaper what I like to do is I'll take my branch cutters and in the side I'm putting the tip in I'll take the branch cutters and I'll cut the I'll cut the tip into it. There we go. Like that. That's nice. We're trying to put copper around the handles. I don't look pretty sick if I do say so myself. At least that's the goal. And, um… Yeah, there you can snip, snip, snip. Now if you don't have branch cutters you can always use a small pocket knife and just kind of, you know. But, um, now I take my branch, my, my, branch carving knife, this is great for getting the bark off and is a certain technique I use on using the bark knife. I want it to look the bark to look like that when I'm carving the bark off. That creates even lines when you're carving the bark off. That creates even lines when you're carving the bark off. Now you could just use sandpaper to get your bark off if you didn't want to use a sharp knife but using all sandpaper for the whole thing would take forever just saying. so now I want to go around in a circle around in a circle around the just car that bark right off. And I want to take and just carve that bark right off. And I want to take and just carve that bark right off. He could use a chopstick to make a wand and hot glue, but if you're going to make a wand, this method will get better results, in my opinion. As somebody who practices magic, not the card game, but the real shit, instead of praying that your life can get better, why not make it better by using the power of magic? Yeah. So carving lawns can be a great way to gain a hobby and no, there's a lot No, there's a lot of people who practice magic and carve wands. I'm not the only one. It's a great way to make new friends and literally carve a holdable piece of work. Now I left the bark on the handle like so. Now at this point if you wanted to stop here for the wand you could. I mean this is a very basic, very plain wand. You have a little bit of bark for the thing right here for the for the blade of the wand but um well the finished product ends up looking like this this is my wand that I carry with me sometimes it's a basic handheld wand I mean there's so many steps to making these YouTube but I suppose if you want to be a bit more finicky and make the sanding a little bit easier you could take your your carving knife and push down on those knots you can knock them and um… push down on those knots and knock them off. I mean you could take sandpaper and sand these knots off by hand but if you want to make it sanding a little bit easier then you can take that bark carving knife and just dupe go in an angle and dupe pop and dupe. and then knife and just dupe. Go in at an angle and dupe pop it off. Now ancient, ancient pagans have been carving lawns for centuries. They would either use a sharp blade or a sharp stone and if they wanted to put a crystal in their wand, they would find a crystal in a stick big enough for it. And then they'd take a sharp dagger and they would whittle it out. They would literally whittle it by hand. And they didn't have the modern conveniences of an electric drill. So they pretty much made do with what they had and once they got the crystal hole tight enough it's where you could just pop it in there and it wouldn't come out they'd pull it back out they put some like sap from a tree you know something sticky that'll hold it in there and then they would pop the crystal will hold it in there. And then they would pop the crystal in place, getting in there nice and snug, they'd leave it to dry, so once the sap dried, they'd probably use other things too like clay and sap to hold it in the hole, because these were the resources found from Mother Earth. They didn't have the convenience of gorilla glue. But this is the modern way to carve a wand without, you know, so I see people using hot glue and chopsticks to make these wands. You know, I'm like, well that's cute for a party decoration, I suppose. Like, if you want to make something quick and easy, but… This is like the first step to making how I make my wands. Very basic. Um, when, yeah. I guess if you wanted more of an elder wand sort of look, then you could just, you know, sand them off to a point, but not too much. But after the bark carving knife is done its work this is pretty good. This will make sanding super easy when I go to make this into a wand. But if you want to stop here you could this is a very basic how-to-wand. I mean at this point if you wanted to dip this in mod-podge and let it dry it come out nice and shiny you know if you want to dip this in mod podge and let it dry it come out nice and shiny you know if you want it but really the next step if you want to make this into a wand you take leather cord tied in a knot at the top of your handle and then you want to take that leather cord and wrap it nice and tight around and then once it gets down to about the bottom of it right here circle back up around back to the top and then tie it and then get a small length of it about this long, breaking off your roll, and then tie that second knot right in front of your first knot and take a dab of gorilla glue, all-purpose, clear-drying gorilla glue, and put the glue on the knot of your handle, let it dry. Once the glue is done drawing on the knot, you can take your snippers and that excess long string that you have from that second knot, just pup, trim it, right down to the glue. That way it's nice and flat. And once you've done that, you can then add like a clear lacquer or lax of some sort like I use mod podge that makes it shiny and once the mod podge dries now in theory you wouldn't even have to use gorilla glue for the knot you could just dip the whole wand and mod podge and paint it with bondpodge and then let it dry and then trim the excess. But the reason why I use clear drying gorilla glue is so that way I know for sure the handling coming off. But this one is ready to be sanded in all that so I'm going to add it to the pile I got over here. I found a couple trees around town that I can get sticks from really easily which makes it easier. Just because I show you all how to make a wand and might offer some fair competition but people people always going to come back to buy a Cobourcraft handmade wand, because it's just the principle of the matter. Having a wand made by a commoner or having a wand made by somebody who actually practices magic. Okay, now it's kind of a no player. Well, this one's going to produce an interesting looking wand because there's a lot of nubs at the bottom here. I'm going to leave this end right here with all the knots for the handle. Because I don't look cool for the handle. Because I don't look cool for the handle. Because I notice that the nubs up here on the other end are pretty easy to trim. Don't take that much either. Okay, so… Plus when I hold it, like right here, this just feels like the handle already. You know, visualize… You know… the wants to look pretty and look like the kingfloop, an actual wizard shop or what have you. You know, it takes a bit of time and patience. And then this is the problem, YouTube, with the education system. When there is a budget cut, the first things to go are usually art choir and stuff like that. We live in a society that favors athletics over creativity. sports is just not my forte. But the only sport I would do would be air softing or paintball or clay shooting which looks really fun or windsurfing but I also like playing pool and bowling. That was about the only two sports. I like besides air softing and paintball, bowling and pool. But pool especially is a sport, it's a gentleman's game really, you know, you know what I'm saying, it requires mathematics and, you know, not trying to sound sex, as women can play pool too, but you know what I meant. It requires actual thinking, not just… You know what I meant. It requires actual thinking not just it does you know I'm saying your physical strength will only get you so far in a sport like pool. I want to go ahead and carve the bark off of this one. I mean I was going to go grab like two more sticks for the batch and… I think it might as well do that before I get supplies. But the weather's been a wee bit chilly, so, you know, the weather gets colder, you know. This is the problem with a YouTube when… What are kids who are not very athletic supposed to do for extracurricular activity when in school the first thing that gets cut is the art program, you know, the music department, the drama club, you know, that's kind of unfair. But that's just a society we live in. And for a further, further, and further more, yeah, further more YouTube, why the hell are teachers paid less than athletes? I mean, no one's arguing that football is a dangerous sports, but that doesn't mean, you know, heart surgeons and teachers are paid less yearly than teachers. It's appalling, YouTube. responsible for molding the minds and the future brains of tomorrow. To me I think that's a lot more important than being able to chuck around a god-dam football. Because that's just the thing of it you two. I could be the future president one day or the next big inventor, you know. And a lot of these kids, when their favorite programs are cut from schools, you know what saying, they're more likely to sit at home, play video games, get into drugs, get into gangs, you know. And then there is a sign you wants to sit there and say, well today is you with blah blah blah blah blah. And it's like, well, you know, okay, that's like eating a bunch of McDonald's, getting super fat, and then blaming McDonald's for it really. You know, a lot of people complain about how kids are joining gangs and this and that. And I'm like, well sometimes our society drives people to join, you know, much like an old lady going to church, people join gangs to find a place to belong. It's no different. It's the same concept. You know. If you want to get into something get into magic. Witchcraft does not discriminate, unlike 98% of most religions. You see what I'm saying? You see what I'm saying? Like, magic doesn't care if you're female or male. Women can empower themselves through magic and confidence. Yes, women can empower themselves through the power of Lilith, who is the mother of all demons. You know, you ever see these people in society, YouTube, these people in society, you always seem to have the upper hand. And you're thinking to yourself, how the hell do they do it? Some people have learned how to use magic. And of course, if you want to gain an upper hand in society, sometimes it helps to understand people. If you think about it, psychology, human psychology is a form of magic, really. Understanding how these crazy bastards we call humans think and exist. Chemistry, ah, chemistry, what is that? It's potions, a form of magic. You're taking one thing and another thing to make another thing happen. You're bending reality by using ingredients. You see someone, and here's a basic science experiment. It's messy, but it works. You take some mentos, drop it in some diet Coke, and then you close the lid and shake it up. And then try to open it. See what happens. It'll make a huge mess and it'll explode everywhere. It's because the chemical reaction with the mentos reacts with the diet Coke and it causes it to fizz everywhere. Another form of potions making magic is herbology. The study of plants, basically. Which is a real thing, you can go to college to study plants. college to study plants. You can't go to college to become a genius at chemistry, you know what I'm saying. There we go. I like that. So sometimes if I want to leave the knots on the wood, I'll just hardly sanity to standing at all. But the bark carving knife that I have here, this took short work of most of the… what I need you to do. Now when you sand these smooth and then you take the sandpaper and you pinch it right here and just you know what I'm saying? pretty straightforward. Well like I said if you want to just leave the wand up to this point and sand it and you didn't want to sand it each want to yell the bark off one-half leave the handle to have bark on it. You didn't want to sand it, you wanted to yell the bark off one half, leave the other half for the handle to have bark on it. You could totally do that. And if you wanted to lodge it afterwards, you know, put some kind of clear coat on it so that way it stays shiny. Now this is how you make wands, YouTube. You whittle them out of actual wood. You know what I'm saying? Carving wood actually takes a bit of effort. You know what I'm saying? Wrapping hot glue around a chopstick. No offense to nobody who does it, but that's… that doesn't require much efforts. And if you sit in there waiting for it to dry anyways, then you know what I'm saying, carving a stick into a wand may take a little bit longer, adding paint and leather and whatever else, you know what I'm saying, waiting for it to dry in multiple steps it may take longer yes but the finished product looks good in my opinion this is my handheld wand that I have in as an example and then holding this one next to my actual handheld one, it's about a little bit shorter, we're not too much shorter. And this is the problem with our society. YouTube, it really is like, if you favor athletics more than you do creativity, then how do you expect a child's mind to learn the same way Just like not every child is going to be into sports Now here's the other wand that I carved and you can see it's a little bit longer than this one that I just carved but not too much longer. These are a nice wand length. They're not too short, they're not too long. These need to be sanded, painted, have handles put on them in one head of view. Hmm. This would be the longest wand in my batch. I'm looking at this and I'm like, you know, we could take a little bit more bark. Off of it right here YouTube If you just had to get a bark carving knife be careful these things are kind of sharp Okay, you see, that's how you carve a fucking wand. You see that shit? Yeah. And you're gonna have like little, you know, I'm saying little slivers of it, hanging, off like little chunks of it, you know, blah, blah. At this point, once you've got it carved out You want to leave the handle nice and fat, but you want to make The blade of your wand a little bit smaller than the handle and doing that you could do it Just use the bark carving knife if you wanted to but that would take a little bit too long. You just want to use this for getting the bark off basically. Frickin sandpaper is the best and what kind of sandpaper should you use? Heavy grit. Easy as piss. The heavy grit will make it smooth. You can also use it to get those rough cuts from the snippers in your point round it off so it looks it looks you know a bit more professional but I mean if you want to make a wand you'll just like this very plain no handle you know or does to technically have a handle but I mean you see the difference between a finished one and one that just needs the the rest of the steps you You know what I'm saying? You too. Yeah. And then sometimes you'll get sticks like this one that kind of have a little bit of bend to them. All the sticks on my bench over here need to be sanded so I can paint them. After I paint them I'll add the custom copper handles to them. I'm not going to give away all my trade secrets mind you. But, you know, making a wand of an actual stick versus using some chopstick and covering it and glue. I mean the chopstick ones, I guarantee you they're going to break easier. I mean the chopstick ones I guarantee you they're going to break easier. You know and at some point you can't have that wand near any heat if it's covered in hot glue because then the hot glue will just melt. See what I'm saying you too. But if you're going to start making one one ones, if you're going to start carving ones, start off with the small ones like this one. Real basic, real basic, real easy. But once you get a bit more advanced ones, start off with the small ones like this one. Real basic, real easy. But once you get a bit more advanced in wand making, then you can make bad mamba jamas like this one right here. This is my crystal deceptor that I made. These take a lot longer to make and a lot more time. When I tell people I make crystal wands and sell them on Etsy as well as the handheld wands. Right now these are the only two styles I've offered on Etsy so far. I don't make the crystal septors very often which makes them them, you know, a bit more valuable on the market, I guess, but I needed a way to make an example. So when I say to people, yeah, I make these for a deal, you know. Yeah, this thing took for freaking ever to make. a lot of cutting. Yeah, this thing took for freaking ever to make. There's a lot of sanding, a lot of cutting, and the key to making your quartz crystal stay in there nice and tight. I will say this. You want to make sure the hole is just tight enough that the crystal that you use fits snugly in there and that when you go to pull it back out it takes a little bit of a little bit of elbow grease to pull it out. That's how you know that when you that way when you put your clear-drying gorilla glue inside the hole and then you pop the crystal back into place and you let it dry and then once it's done drying get like a nice coat of clear-drying glue around the bottom of it right here let that dry and then if you want to wrap copper wire around it you can go ahead and do that's what I did right here with my with my wand. Yeah. People are asking what kind of crystal is this? This is a smoky shaman garden courts. I picked it up at the Wonder Gift Shop over on CY. There's also the Jade Elephant as well. Those are the only two shops that I know of. But I usually go to the Wonder just because, you know, I've always gone there. I mean, like, that's been, you know, my one-stop shop because they have other things too in there. That's like Casper's Magic Store basically, for lack of better term, yeah. They sell incense, they sell sage, they sell wenshimes, books, candles, music, crystals, crystals, crystals, crystals, You know and a lot of people would talk mad smack like all kinds of cool shit Tibetan sceneballs that kind of thing yeah you know and a lot of people would talk mad smack like you're just you make you know and a lot of people would talk mad smack. Like, oh, you're just… You make a living painting sticks! Actually, you're just jealous for one. And two, I make a living making handheld artwork. You know what I'm saying? I would have sold this on it, see, but I almost got my blood on this, carving it, which in wand lower, if you get your blood or almost get your blood on it. You know, yeah. But the next scepter I make will be going on at sea. I don't make them too often just because they take longer, you know. But… But… Yeah, these things are cool man. But yeah, these things are cool man. Watch a And this thing, this thing's heavy too, and this has got some weight to it. I figured if Christians can walk around with a god-dam Bible in their hand in town, then why shouldn't I be able to walk around town with a magic wand? I'm just saying. Freedom of religion is a beautiful thing, YouTube. And it's a freedom that should not be taken for taken for granted. Considering a lot of countries don't have that freedom, you know, you're pretty much you're pretty much stuck with… you're pretty much stuck with whatever the country is forced to believe in some cases, you know. and there are some countries for the country forced to believe in in some cases, you know. And there are some countries where the restriction to religion is so severe that, you know, you're not even allowed to carve wands or make them because it's considered taboo. So the freedom of religion comes with a price and that price is as long as you are not directly hurting other people with your religious beliefs, then who cares? Who cares? You know? To each his or her own. how to carve a basic handheld wand. At that point, if you didn't want to add leather to the handle or anything, you could just paint it, let it dry, put some podge on it, some mod podge. And the mod podge that I use, I'll show you what it looks like. It looks like this. It looks like this. This is the, uh, Gloss, Luster, This is another wand I'm trying to make off on the side here. I want to see if I can figure out a way to put quartz crystals in a handheld wand. That's why there's a hole right here in the bottom of it. And this is just a trial, but if they make quartz crystals this tiny, which I know they do, it'd be cool for like a handheld one, especially if it's, you know, yeah. It's got two different shades of green on it. I mean this is what what it would look like more painted and sanded smooth without a handle basically. And I haven't put podge on it yet because I'm still working on this thing. I want to add more details to it. This is just a blank canvas at this point still. because I'm still working on this thing. I want to add more details to it. This is just a blank canvas at this point still. But, um, yeah. Yeah, a female friend of mine wanted me to make her a wand, and I said, well, what are you into? And she goes, I'm into a garden and green and stuff like that. I'm like, all right, I'll see what I can do. And if I can get like some decorative ornament type stuff that has like little metal leaves on them, I can take the metal leaves and then kind of glue them right above where the handle is going to be kind of give it that look, you know. Yeah. But, at this point, YouTube, at this point, fucking shit. God damn when I dropped it. Be careful. Oh, it's okay, this thing seems pretty solid, but still. Fucking clumsy bastard, okay. If you didn't want to add a handle to it, though, still, if you didn't want to add a handle to it, you could just paint it and put the podge on it. You know. I didn't mean to drop it but it is what it is. Anyways, that's how you carve a basic handheld wand. It's not that difficult. It's not that difficult. Although I might end up remaking that wand because… I don't know. This stick doesn't look very thick. I mean, I'm remaking it just because I might want something a little bit thicker. Overthinking it by the time I had the to overthink it. By the time I have the quartz crystal to it, the bottom of it, like right in there, and like, some metal leaves around the top, right by the hand, yeah, that'll look cool. I'm not going to overthink it. and I'll tell you right now making just a basic wand without a crystal is the easiest way to start making ones. Adding the quartz crystals does get a bit more difficult as you know if you draw the hole too thin in diameter the crystal will pop out in the wall around it'll break so you want a nice you want a nice thick wall surrounding your courts So, all I can do is try. I've never actually attempted to add cores to the bottom of these before. Because it's such a small surface, but… But… But……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… But um, I do have a drill bits that are small enough to make a hole for these to have quartz in them. It's just going to be finding quartz crystals that are small enough, you know. I know Etsy has these little quartz crystals that are like this big and they like little penance……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Quartz crystals that are like this big and they're like little pendants. You know if I could find something like that here in town then you know it's always a bit more convenient if you can get your supplies in town that way you don't have to order it online wait for it you know but 98 to 99% of my But, yeah, and these are custom shipping tubes that are nice. The only thing I don't get here in town is the shipping tubes. My order those, or my dad orders those online, yeah. But, um… Yeah., and these are custom shipping tubes that are nice and smaller so they don't you know I'm saying They're small enough to hold the wands and yeah, most of you of course who have received a wand by now no. Frickin. People who see me make wands are like, this year I have them, are like, oh, could you make me one, or could you make my kid one, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Yeah, then I could. But if the younger generation gets into wand making, it teaches creativity to give them a creative outlet. I'll. And if you decide to get into wand carving, a good thing to keep in mind for wand carving is patience, you know. Your wands don't have to particularly look a certain way. I mean, they don't have to be exactly like this one, but if you want a nice handheld wand like this, you know what I'm saying? Like even the tip on this one is not sharp. It's rounded But it's not sharp enough where you can actually poke somebody and hurt them, you know It's sharp enough and round enough you can tell which ends the wand and which ends the handle Yeah. And wands like this are great for, um, for freaking, uh, like, sticking in your pocket, you know, or your belt loop. You know what I'm saying? But, uh… to make wand videos. I click on it and most of them are just using chopsticks and hot glue or construction paper and sandpaper and I'm like well that's cute but if you want something a bit more authentic that's how you do it. I catch you, uh, you cool cobras on the flip sign.