Wand-erful Wooden Pens
By Poppy Mosbacher. Posted
This article was originally published as part of HackSpace magazine, which has since been incorporated into Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
“Why choose between a pen and a wand as your weapon of choice, when you can have both?” says engineering student Connie Yu.
Working from Lower 48, a non-profit woodshop in California, Connie transforms pen blanks into magical looking wands.
Connie drills a hole in the pen blank to create room for the pen barrel and uses a lathe to turn the wood into the desired shape.

Connie chooses to polish the wand with oil and wax “since I like to preserve the original, natural feel of the wood.”
To add some colour, Connie then uses a texturing tool to make crevices in the wood and rubs a paste of gold powder and soft wax into the cracks.


Instructions to make your own pen wands are available here.
Poppy is a maker and writer. She loves getting tech into the hands of people who do traditional crafts. She is helping set up a makerspace in Devon and was a director of BuildBrighton makerspace.
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