Wizards Staff is Done

My son, Dmitry, finished making the wizard staff that I made by connecting two three foot dowels.  He covered it with strips of grocery bag and then painted the strips brown.  A darker brown paint was used to paint runes onto the staff.

His hand is partially covering a leather strip that he wound onto the staff.  The leather is from his sister's old purse.

The top of the staff has a metal hanger bent to look like, well, I guess something that is on the top of a wizard's staff.  The director of the play he will be in wants to replace the wire with some kind of globe.

I kind of like the staff the way it is.  Nice job Dima!

Here is a link to the play he will be using the staff in: Once Upon a Mattress.

Started Making a Wizards Staff

My son is going to play a wizard in a high school play in January.  He wants a staff to use as a prop.  We are going to make a staff based on an Instructable for Gandalf's staff.

I went to Michaels and bought two three foot (3') long, one inch (1") diameter dowels.  I would have liked to get longer dowels but they did not have any.

I was at the Milwaukee Makerspace yesternight and spent a bit of time connecting the two dowel pieces together.  First, I used the metal cutting bandsaw to cut the head off of a 5/8", six inch long bolt.  Then, I used a hand drill to drill a hole on the end of each of the dowels.  I inserted half of the bolt into one of the dowels.  Then, I put Gorilla Glue on the other half of the bolt and on the surface of the dowel.  I connected the two pieces and secured them with electrical tape.

The finished staff appears sturdy.  The next step is to cut a bit off of each end to get the height right and then decorate it to look like a tree branch.

(Not sure who that geek in the picture is but the staff looks good.)