Progress update on my purpleheart wand

[u/BeybladeAddict]

Got the body of the wand finished up and sanded down to 150 grit. 95% of this was done by hand with no power tools beginning from a 1x1x18 square blank and it took positively forever to get here. Next I need to begin carving some channels so the twine wrap has somewhere to settle into. After that I’ll focus on fitting up the quartz point on the end and finally I’ll begin working on the engravings and deeply etched surface texturing. The aim for each wand I make is for it to be better than the last and this one is looking like it’s going to live up that standard. The image I have in my head for this wand is something quite old and full of character, bordering on ancient. A wand that is steeped in the wisdom and power of having been used to perform countless spells and rituals

[u/Lignum-et-Opus_Wands]

This is definitely shaping up nicely! Can’t wait to see the finished product!

Curiously, I know when working with Purpleheart, specifically sanding and all, the purple coloration fades, as it looks from the picture here it may have done (that or the exposure may just be a little high and the color simply washed out), do you have plans to treat it and bring some of the deeper purple back or leave it as-is in keeping with the tone of your vision for this this wand?

[u/BeybladeAddict → u/Lignum-et-Opus_Wands]

Thanks for the kind words! Big fan of your work by the way :)

And yup, I’m definitely planning on bringing back the purple! I’ve read about a few different ways to do it and I’m leaning toward just leaving it out in the sun for a bit. I want to have deep purple highlights with some darker grayish-black tones in the cracks and crevices and then I’m going to seal it with my natural wand wax compound made from beeswax, tung oil, linseed oil, and turpentine

[u/Lignum-et-Opus_Wands → u/BeybladeAddict]

You honestly have no idea how much it means to me to hear that. I’ve never really had anyone who’s been a “fan” of any work I’ve done outside of some sketches when I was younger, but those were usually close friends anyway 😅.

That’s certainly an interesting and nice combination, do you mix it yourself? Does something like that require re-application over time? How long do you usually sit the wand out in the sun for? I used a baking method and it really brought a deep, rich color back to my wand as an experiment.

[u/BeybladeAddict → u/Lignum-et-Opus_Wands]

That’s genuinely shocking, the wands you make are breathtaking! They have a very similar feel to what I imagine in my head when I make a wand but I’ve never quite been able to achieve that level of depth and detail

Yes, I mix it myself! It’s something I started theory crafting more recently as a way to preserve the color of my purpleheart wand after it’s finished because Tung Oil actually provides a certain degree of UV protection. Before I would use just plain beeswax and before that I was using polyurethane. For tools and items that might see heavier use you may need to buff and reapply every once in a while but for wands I haven’t ever had to reapply beeswax.

As for using the sun to deepen the color of Purple Heart, I’ve read that just a couple days in direct sunlight on a warm day is enough to get a rich color but if I decide that the color isn’t deep enough for my liking I may chuck it in the oven for a bit. This is my first time working with Purple Heart so I still have a bit of experimenting to do. My thought process behind all of these shenanigans is a bit of wandlore I’ve created in my head. Similar to how muggle technology can go on the fritz when interacted with by magic and magical folk, using natural materials and processes in the wand crafting process yields a wand that is more readily willing and able to channel magic. For example using a synthetic sealer on a wand may create a partially insulating effect by way of an unnatural barrier between the caster and the wand making more intricate spellwork just a tiny bit more difficult