Hobbies: adventures in wand making

[cymbril]

This weekend felt like the time to make my first proper wand. A few weeks ago, I gathered a fallen apple branch along with my bag of wild apples. Using an ordinary kitchen knife, I peeled the bark down to the white wood, then shaped it with a draw knife and a heavy hunting knife. The picture below is after I let it soak in alcohol and gooseberry juice for two hours:
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It's faded to a light pink hue; I'll be trying another, longer soak in a day or two, to make it a deeper shade.
My second dye attempt was not so well, yellow beet juice with vinegar. It did lighten it, but didn't really make it yellow, more the original untreated wood, and roughed it up again. Only using alcohol from now on.

My scanty resources include some really rough sandpaper, which has done most of the job, and my "magic" super-smooth stone (it's complicated ) for burnishing (I think it's called burnishing...). I don't have any wood carving tools ATM, so I drew and poked in element symbols with a small nail.

There's a few unfixed chips in the wood, but I'm quite happy with it for a first wand and will work on it as an ongoing project until it's totally finished. I've acquired a bit of a taste for woodwork (or at least wandwork) during this project!

I'm wondering if anyone knows of any blogs or articles that go in-depth into wands (lore or crafting)? It's hard to find anything non-Potter, but I'd love some more reading material.

[RandallS]

This weekend felt like the time to make my first proper wand. A few weeks ago, I gathered a fallen apple branch along with my bag of wild apples. Using an ordinary kitchen knife, I peeled the bark down to the white wood, then shaped it with a draw knife and a heavy hunting knife. The picture below is after I let it soak in alcohol and gooseberry juice for two hours:
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That looks very nice!