Illuminating McGonagall Wand

[ATL Kenobi]

During this past DragonCon, after flashing my homemade blue LED tipped wand at every other person, my wife mentioned that she’d like an illuminating wand to go along with her Prof. McGonagall persona. After thinking about it, I decided – I can do this. Of course, to be properly color coordinated, it would have to have green LED! Two months later, here’s the result:

The construction is similar to making a turned ink pen, using a bored one inch diameter maple dowel epoxied to a 9mm brass tube. This tube holds 3 AAAA batteries which are about 5/16 inch outside diameter. There’s a contact spring, switch, and 68 Ω resistor built into the handle end, and a high intensity green LED tips the other end. Altogether there around 40 parts that make up the wand.

ATL

 

[Jastor00]

She's a real beaut! Does just the very tip illuminate or is there some glow to it?

 

[ecl]

That is very impressive! Amazing all of that works in something so thin. Super awesome.

 

[LoganCale]

Beautiful wand ATL Kenobi! I've been working on an Elder wand myself, with the hope of someday doing an illuminated one also. I was wondering, in your first photo the wand looks wood all the way to the tip, but in e second photo it looks like the last 1/4" or so is lighted. How did you achieve that and still have it blend with the wood? Also, how do you bore the whole shaft? D you just use an extremely long drill bit? Also, what switch do you use? Thanks, and great job!

 

[ATL Kenobi]

Re: Illuminating Prof. McGonagall Wand

She's a real beaut! Does just the very tip illuminate or is there some glow to it?

Beautiful wand ATL Kenobi! I've been working on an Elder wand myself, with the hope of someday doing an illuminated one also. I was wondering, in your first photo the wand looks wood all the way to the tip, but in e second photo it looks like the last 1/4" or so is lighted. How did you achieve that and still have it blend with the wood? Also, how do you bore the whole shaft? D you just use an extremely long drill bit? Also, what switch do you use? Thanks, and great job!

THANKS!

The LED is in the very tip surrounded by wood filler so the "glow" is limited.

I've tried a dozen times to drill an 1/8" hole (I found an 8" drill bit) through the center of a dowel, and every single time the grain of the wood causes the drill bit to drift throught the side of the dowel. So since this is a painted wand, I simply cut a slot and ran the wires in it, and then covered the wires with wood filler.

The switch came off of an old printed circuit board I had lying around.

Only the last 6 inches of the wand is wood, the rest is 9mm brass tube. Fortunately, since this is a painted wand I was able to get away with it. A stained wand, like an Elder wand, won't hide a slot as easily. You may also want to consider using button cells (LR44 or similar) rather than AAAA - might be easier to hide!

ATL

 

[KevinBGoode]

Very very awesome job!. Are you planning to sell any custom wands?

 

[LoganCale]

ATL Kenobi, thanks so much for the detailed photos and explanations. Very impressive work. I'll definitely be trying this. Hope I can figure out a way to get this to work for the Elder wand... We'll see.

 

[Robiwon]

Very nice wand you built there. I had a similair idea a few years ago and built this HP wand with lighted tip, a 5mm LED. I built mine around Plastruct tube covered in Magic Foam, an air drying foam type of clay. It was carved with a wire wheel in my Dremel to get the wood texture. Sadly I left no access for the battery and it has since died. I need to dig out the bottom to get it out one of these days.