Rose, of Tulipwood

First day with a 1x1x12 blank of Tulipwood from Woodcraft, $14.99. Heavy, honey blonde wood with long filaments of pink grain. Who could resist? In the photo, you can see the design I intended, but fair warning before reading further: the wand doesn't turn out like that.

I always start with a design, and try my best to go that direction, but sometimes the wand within has other plans. While I'm carving, if I stop to fret over apparent changes in the design, I would never finish. Let the shape evolve, the wand will be the shape it wants to be.

I start with the hilt. Using the design as a guide, I add lines to the blank to indicate the flow of elements. In this case, the design of the hilt is a one-centimeter wide ring with an angled crest running along its center, separated from the grip by a deep line about one millimeter wide (ie, the width of the cutting bit). The grip is an ascending groove up to a rounded feature, with a swooping line that swirls back down to the base to create a petal-like shape.

As usual, my main tool is a Dremel 3000 with a basic sanding bit. Dust mask, goggles, headband, hat, headphones, gloves. Sometimes this feels like overkill for light woodwork, but the sanding kicks up far too much dust. I wouldn't be able to work thirty seconds with sawdust going directly into my eyes and nose. I could probably work without gloves except that I'm constantly grazing the leather near my fingers, and since the sanding bit removes skin much faster than it does wood, and because I very much like my fingers, I put on the gloves without complaint.

This day's accompanying music is the Robert Rich & B. Lustmord station on Pandora, matching the soft tones of the tulipwood. *shrug*

The basic form emerges quickly. I use the edge of the sanding bit to follow the line around the top of the main feature, creating a shallow channel. I do that a couple times with the Dremel bit angled toward the base of the hilt, and then I turn the blank around and make the same angled cut in the other direction until I have a nice, even groove.

Then I form the slope that runs down the grip from the bottom the main feature to almost the bottom of the hilt. I begin carving the slope the same way I started the feature above, by cutting an initial groove around the wood with the angled tip of the sanding bit, then tapering downward..

Even though the tulipwood is solid and heavy, the wood peels away easily, so this step doesn't take long. I concentrate on rotating the wood in my hand at a slow, consistent speed so that the slope is even all the way around. Still, I'm enveloped in a cloud of pink sawdust. I don't stop to take a picture.

During this first pass of shaping, I don't dig all the way down into the design. I leave a layer of wood that gives me room to narrow in on the final shape with a finer tool. The basic sanding bit is for removing larger amounts of wood. Later I'll use a flapwheel sanding bit or just sandpaper to smooth out the curve of the slope.

As I reach the bottom of the grip, the slope sharply changes direction to form a steep angle up, leaving about a centimeter to the base of the hilt. Once the short, upward slope is complete, I round the corners off the last centimeter of the blank to create the unstructured ring.

Shaping the petal. I use string and tape to mark the line for the groove that will spiral down the hilt. But instead of a simple spiral, the design calls for a flower petal, which should be more graceful and delicate that just a twist of the wood. I'm not exactly sure how this is going to turn out.

The resulting cut below  looks rough. It looks much better after I've smoothed it out a bit with the sanding bit and then sanding paper.

That's the end of Day One with the tulipwood. The plan for the next step is to form the shaft.

Conceptually easy, carving a straight shaft can be a challenge, requiring both concentration and stamina. Because I have plenty of wood to work with (removing almost three-quarters of an inch of wood), it would simple to wander into a slight bend or curve, completely changing the aspect of the wand. I had mowed and trimmed the yard before wandcrafting, so by now was plenty exhausted after only two hours. I have to wait.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't have another opportunity to work with this wand until the following weekend, since I was attending a wedding the next day.