So, our journey begins like most journeys.... a young girl heads off to the outside world, in search of the great and powerful wand. She finds a shop along the way that sells wands, however the shop keep looks at the poor girl and with his gruff exterior and piping voice says...



The poor girl saddened by remembers that she knows how to make things, and that she can make a wand just as good as any in that man's store.
So she heads off into the wilderness.... and walks through the spooky woods...



and finds a place of wonders... it is called "generic home improvement depot", in the past she built such great things from findings from this huge cavern... such as a gas excited laser or go carts, and even a new BBQ grill!



So she sets off to collect her supplies... an 3/8" aluminum rod, some 3/8" I.D. steel spacers, JB weld, and 3/4" dual wall heat shrink!






She then heads home .... along the way she is very hungry, but she spent all her money on the above components and the evil shop keep in his piping voice says again...



So she returns home and eats ramen and with her earlier acquired items begins crafting her new wand.

Using her tools...



she begins work, things are shaping up nicely, don't ya think?



she then roughs up the aluminum rod with some 120 grit sandpaper and also does the same to the inside of the bushings.... after which she JB welds them in place and lets it cure overnight..



Then using the heat gun and a sharp knife she places the heatshrink over the middle sections of the new wand, having cut the lengths just a little bit longer than needed so that she can trim it later with a sharp razor blade.



When the girl was happy with her new wand she decided to take a picture of it to share with all the other people who also might want a wand but not have enough golds.



And thus a girl gained a shiny new wand for a minimum of golds.

The end.

Nice job on the wand and the post. don't think we have had the pleasure of seeing something like this posted in the workshop. You are without question very talented.

Magic smiles down on the girl... and many doors open.

I agree. We don't see a post like that here very often. And beautiful work, too. Thank you.

Oh, BTW, I notice you didn't build in a little compartment for a hedgehog spine...

That is for another story

This is the stand I made for the new wand last night, I am currently considering how I want to paint it... in a black or maybe in some other color... I do have a hammered copper or maybe a granite paint. I like stands that keep things out in easy reach, I am more apt to actually use said item. (something I learned while learning to play the guitar... keep one next to the bed, keep one next to the PC, keep one in the living room).



The stand itself is pretty simple to make on a 3D printer, just print out the parts and use some leftover pipe or dowel or aluminum stock (in my case) and glue them in. I ended up heating the aluminum up with a butane torch and pushing them into place. The plastic seals around the bar and becomes very solid when cooled. Total print time, 35 minutes, total material used, 9g of PLA.

Cool stand. I like it a lot. Is the plastic strong enough and sturdy enough to drill through and mount to a wall? Or will it just sit on a desk?

That depends on the infill, for instance if I need something I can stand on, I would print at 100% infill and it would be a solid piece. Though to be honest, you really should never need to drill something that you design on a 3D printer, if you need to make a major structural modification then you did not design the part correctly in the CAD software. All of the features you want should be designed in from the beginning. If you forgot something, it is generally easier to just modify the file and reprint it.

And so the girl made a new home for her wand, it sat far above the lesser wand that she had purchased long ago from the piping voiced shop keeper.

The girl looks at the wand in its new throne and remembers another tale....

"Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Conan, destined to wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!"



So the happy girl wanders off in search of another form of magic, that of the movies.

the end

Love The paint. What did you use?

Have you thought of building a Pop Hayden teleportation device ? might be the best ever. After all the girl needs the power to do that.

Yeah, I just watched that on youtube XD I was laughing pretty hard XD

I could make a pretty nifty device I imagine, I used to design and build guitar amplifiers (tube amps) and still have lots of old leftover tubes from that

As far as paint, I used a hammered copper rustoleum paint. That stuff is great for covering the striations on a 3D print if you are too lazy or unable to do some sort of vapor bath to smooth it. First, far away do some spritzes with the paint to lay down texture, then when happy with that do a light over the top coat.

I decided to use some of the remaining aluminum bar stock and heat-shrink to make another wand. The heat-shrink this time is a 3/8 adhesive dual wall instead of the 3/4" adhesive dual wall. I slipped some brass pipe over the ends first and with a pipe cutter made some nice grooves, these grooves also dug into the aluminum bar beneath. Then with some sandpaper (600 grit) I polished it up and made the ends shine. Apply heat-shrink to the middle section and line it up carefully so that it just touches each end as it shrinks and done.

I used a set of calipers to make sure both ends matched.

I am going to hit the brass ends with some clear coat after a good polish. This should help keep things shiny and sort of "cap" it all off





I considered doing some inlay in silver and etching some designs... maybe in a future version.

Well done!

An excellent story and an excellent ending. You no doubt had your game set to "difficult" and earned a lot of achievement points.

Great construct.
I wanted to take some pictures of the wand I made in which I used those same tips you used in the first wand posted; I did use a larger diameter wooden dowel and then sanded it down to the same level as the tips and found a tiny silver plug for the ends.

I really like the tips you made on that 2nd wand where you used the pipe cutter to score the grooves, that adds a very nice touch indeed.

In fact I sold some of my wands on EBAY for a little while, people actually liked them and bought them but EBAY and PayPal take soooo much in fees it just eats away at any profit you make and you can't charge too much then no one will buy.

Yeah, auctions sites do that, but sometimes they are the best way. I may soon be putting up my last gen VR system up for sale soon and am cringing at the thought of how much they will take off the top

Another side note: is that a wand made mostly of wood like the one built is so less "bulky" feeling as these fancy store bought one. The weight of the wand exsists on the tips,which are metal. To me it makes spinning the wand easier.

I used aluminum for the majority of the wand, per the images. The weight is still in the ends, it just means that I don't need to worry about warping and it could possibly make one heck of a weapon in a pinch <.<;;

How long were these wands?

As long as you want? that's the point of making something yourself

I made mine a bit over 13 I inches as that seemed a good measurement, just felt right.