A story of enchanting imagination, inspiration, sawdust, books, and a magical secret!

Harry Potter’s Wand?

Let me give you a super short summary first. This build was ignited by a simple request; can you make him a “Harry Potter’s Wand?” OH YES! This is the stuff I really live for. An eight year old boy that want’s a Harry Potter’s Wand? Not the latest electronic toy etc? Without a doubt Heck Yes!!!

Again, for summary’s sake, what I came up with was a hand-carved wand and a secret-bookshelf-slash-crate-of-books. It was the perfect place to hide his dangerous and powerful  wizard’s wand.

The Build:

Perhaps a little backwards from the original request, I first began the quest to build the box… Build the “Crate of Books” that would hold his magic wand and whatever other wonderful imaginative things he’d like to secretly store. The outside is to be of a weathered and almost insignificant look. The face is in appearance nothing more than a collection of various books.

Opening the secret doors reveals the secret self and the Hogwarts Train Station to transport his imagination any place he wishes.

Here’s a quick walk-through:

As you can see below, the secret bookshelf “Crate-Of-Books”, has a wonderful weathered and aged look. Each of the books you see have been sliced, leaving about an inch thick part of only the book binding. These were permanently attached to two swing open doors. The opening of these secret doors is done by pressing in on the Harry Potter book near the middle of the book set. Swinging open the doors reveals the single secret shelf, and the magical Hogwarts Station in the background.

Now back to Harry Potter’s Wand – It began as nothing more than about 18 inches of 1 inch diameter Maple Dowel I had in shop. Something I’ve never created before; which is also part of the fun – taking on a new challenge. The wand was shaped and carved through turning on the Shopsmith lathe and hand carving the details with both a Dremel tool and bits, and hand sanding. The wand was given an aged look using 3 different wood stains, and protected with gloss polyurethane finish.

Ps.

Like it, have questions, or want to know more… Please let me know in the comments below!

Hand cut, hand shaped, and every nook and cranny hand sanded, then hand rubbed and buffed with Danish wood oil.

So Why would I put so much work into something so small and perhaps “insignificant”? Take a moment and think about other woodworkers. What might they be making? Maybe a beautiful Armoire, or mid-century dining set, and yet I’ve made thousands of these little, captivating guitar picks with a perfect fit thumb grip set at just the right attack angle.

Well there’s two parts to the story or History. First off, they weren’t my original idea. OMG! You copied the idea?! No. Not many would be crazy enough, and far less would put the amount of work I do into each pick. The original idea came from a question a very good, old friend asked. The second part of the History is why do I continue to make a pick with so much work involved on each and every pick?

“A spark of inspiration from unexpected places”

Let me take you back and paint you a bit of history. Go back with me over 30 years to a small, not very well lit shop on the back of our garage. Oh it’s also where my Mom and Dad had our extra fridge and a freezer – wait till the end and I’ll tell you about cookies. In this little shop was a plywood work bench, metal vice, hand tools on the wall, and a number of power tools, all very tightly arranged. It was in this shop I was working on a birthday gift for my little sister. She’s a keyboard/piano player. I was sculpting a tiny 16th music note from some walnut wood. This 16th note was for a necklace (which by the way turned out great!). There I was sanding and shaping when my good buddy walked into the shop. Chatting and checking out what I was doing, he asked “can you make a guitar pick?” to which I said SURE! Now see, I told you it wasn’t my original idea right? It was his question that sparked the whole thing off. Just like many other creations, they start with a spark of inspiration often times from unexpected places, or in this case person. His question sparked that creative process. We were both guitar players, or perhaps better said playing at guitar, but none the less very familiar with how to use a pick. My answer was sure, BUT why make just a flat pick. Instead I created a cradling concave section to fit your thumb and help control the pick from rotating when in use. This very first pick was crafted from Black Walnut wood, selected from a very dense, tight-grained section of the board to be the strongest and hopefully hold up to use. It worked out perfectly. Only one small but important improvement was made from that first pick to all that followed, that was to angle the thumb grip and provide a perfect attack angle.

I still have that very first pick. All these years and still looks great.

♪♪ Be inspired and play something beautiful! ♪♫

Inspiration is the reason I still make these today. I’ve had the pleasure to inspire guitar players and musicians young and old to play something beautiful. I limit making only a few at a time and each one with heart and soul poured into it.

Dylan was so surprised when I gave him his guitar picks. He was literally speechless. He was completely amazed and touched at how much love went into thinking about his gift and the precious time that went into carving such beautiful work! I had to convince him it was okay to actually use them, he was so concerned about messing them up! He then spent the next half hour just playing different songs and enjoying his new favorite pick.

Lisa

PS. Remember that fridge and freezer in our small shop? That’s where my siblings and I would sneak some of the goodies our Mom would bake and store in the freezer. Did you know frozen Chocolate Chip Cookies are really good!!!?

The challenge on this one is to match an existing Rustic style table. I only have a couple mobile phone pics emailed to me of the table, and I want as always to bring my friends and customers something really special.

On the list to do:

• Big 28 inch diameter.
• Rustic Saw marks
• Match the color(s) of the existing table
• Oh, and build it heavy duty.

Created a large 32 inch square of 1 inch pine. Marked and rough cut out the circle. To clean up the circle to a precise 28 inch diameter, a jig was created to hold and rotate it against a 12 inch disk sander. Edge sanded, smooth and perfectly precise, a small round-over was routed top and bottom of the edge.

After the pretty, new and smooth 28 inch circle was finished, it’s time to rough it up and make it rustic. Two different saw marks – what you’d see from a Band saw, and those you’d see from a Circular saw blade. All handcrafted.

Finally matching the colors. A mix of 3 different stains were applied to match the table. Finished off with polyurethane, then hand-buffed with beeswax to a soft, beautiful glow.

Unloading Walnut at the Lumber Mill. Freshly cut tree will be custom milled into workable lumber. Already dreaming what to make!!! Very Happy Woodworker 🙂

What to do when a friend offers the wood from a Walnut tree they are cutting down. Of course I said YES! We cut the logs to roughly 7 or 8 feet in length. Luckily my friend had a tractor with forks to lift each log. The weight of some were near capacity for the little John Deer. We lifted and set the logs one at a time onto the tailgate, then slid them into the bed of my truck. My hard plastic bed liner made it pretty easy to slide and position the logs. One by one, we loaded up logs until “I” felt we were at capacity. Four logs loaded with one more I could have taken. Turned down number five as we felt would have pushed it and maxed out those rear shocks. All in all, it actually drove the freeway very well weight wise and handling. I have driven it with a heavier load.

Loaded with fresh cut logs

Update!

Picking up the sliced lumber from the Lumber Mill, here’s what the load looks like all cut up.