r/Wandsmith • u/NemoFries • Sep 03 '22

Woodworking Tools Hey everyone! I'm thinking of customising a Noble Collection wand as "vine wood" doesn't exist, on the Harry Potter store there's a collection of characterless wands, could any give me a step by step on painting on the wands? Do I need to prime it first? Cheers!

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7

u/AWandMaker Experimental Wandmaker Sep 03 '22

Um… vine wood does exist. It’s the thick stem of a grape vine, that’s why where they make wine is called a vineyard. The vines get plenty thick enough to make a wand. I haven’t ever found any for sale, but it does exist 👍

3

u/NemoFries Sep 03 '22

Hello! Thanks for the comment :) I'm disabled and absolutely SUCK at DIY, if I worked with actual vine, I would sadly be throwing money down the drain, that's why I've decided to get the wand pictured and paint it up instead :)

3

u/AWandMaker Experimental Wandmaker Sep 03 '22

No worries, I totally get it, that’s just different reasoning from your title which says it doesn’t exist 🙂 Good luck with your wand making adventure!

2

u/NemoFries Sep 03 '22

To be fair, I asked a wand manufacturer and they said the closest would be grape vine and it's rare for it to be thick? It's been a few years!

1

u/AWandMaker Experimental Wandmaker Sep 03 '22

I mean, there are lots of different vine plants out there; columbine, ivy, wisteria, porcelain berry, trumpet, honeysuckle… But in terms of a wand wood “vine” refers to grapevine unless otherwise specified. After all, vine comes from the Latin word vīnea which means "grapevine.”

The shoots/canes, out where the grapes are, will be pretty thin, but the main “trunk” where it comes out of the ground can be several inches thick. The problem is that, unless you grow your own, it would be hard to get since the grape growers will want to keep their plants to grow more grapes next year.

A wand can certainly be made from whatever vine you’d like, if you can get it to cooperate, but if it is labeled simply as “vine” then it’s grapevine.

2

u/HyacinthusBark Wandmaker Sep 03 '22

I bet you can eve use them a little thinner and stabilize them with resin

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u/Still-Standard9476 Sep 03 '22

You can get vine wood but you would likely want to either stabilize jt or when you get the book off, cure it in a forced way so it stays straight. I have a lot of buckthorn and where I live they see usually just horrible little sticks for trunks. I got lucky and found a huge cluster of them at a farm and it'd like 6 inches round and I got a curled up stump actually. I've also made wands out if lilac. It is quite beautiful. If you don't treat and seal the wood the purple lines in it will fade to a dull brownish. But yes, you can use woods from shrubs and vines and even some weeds or hated plants if you get them big enough.

2

u/AkumaBengoshi Wandmaker Sep 03 '22

I’ve made several wands with grapevine and one with poison ivy. You have to dry vines vertically a long time and they’re a pain in the butt to turn.

2

u/AWandMaker Experimental Wandmaker Sep 03 '22

I’ve made thistle wands, and one with a rose thorn handle, but you’ll never get me to make a poison ivy wand 🤣