Wandcraft
From ErtverseWiki
Wandcraft is only 60% science, and 40% art, and few Witches or Wizards are suited to the practice. However, a wand is far more than a stick of wood that is waved around at a whim to create spells. There is a rhyme and reason to every action that goes into the creation of a wand, and each of them individually determines the temperament of the resulting wand.
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Methods in Wandcraft
The first step in the creation of any wand is to obtain the wood from which it will be made. The Wandcrafter does not perform this job, but makes semi-annual trips to a wandwood storehouse to select from the stock there. That wood will then be used to create wands. It is the Arborwizard who locates suitable wandwood trees and harvests the wood from them.
Wandwood must come from a tree that is at least 75 years old (depending on the breed of tree) and in good health. Most importantly, the tree must not be killed in the harvesting process, as a good wandwood tree is extremely hard to find. They are mapped out, and harvested approximately once every 25 years, no more often, lest the tree be harmed. Only the newest growth is harvested from these trees; branches less than 3 inches in diameter, living wood all the way to the core.
This wood is then taken and stored in bundles for approximately six months, in a cool dry place, often in the cellar of the Wandcrafter or in a wandwood storehouse. This ensures that any environmental moisture has gone out of the wood, and prevents infestation by any bacteria or insects, which would later damage the wand. The choice of wood will of course influence the temperament of the wand itself, and while a full range of wood would be most useful, wands created in England are most normally done using indigenous species of wood.
These include: Yew, Red Oak, White Oak, Elm, Hawthorn, Ash, Sycamore, Birch, Maple, Poplar, Willow, Cyprus, Hazel, Alder, Juniper, Aspen, Magnolia, Walnut, Butternut (White Walnut), Laburnum, Chestnut, Beech, Linden, and Rowan (the last of which is harvestable at age 25, due to short life span.)
Some common wood imports include: Rosewood, American Lime, and Basswood from America, Maple from Canada, Teak from Costa Rica, Cherry from Japan, Bubinga (a.k.a. African Rosewood) from Africa, Mahogany from Brazil, Rosewood from India and Brazil, Ebony, from Africa, India, or Texas, and Purpleheart and Cocobolo from Central America.
Softwoods are not suitable wand wood, there have been experiments done with various shellacking methods to make them suitable, as they do work, magically speaking, however they have a very short shelf life, snapping easily, and having end blowouts after long periods of regular use.
The only hybrid tree ever bred which yields suitable wandwood is an Apple/Chestnut tree that was first harvested in 2008.
The Personality and Flexibility of a Wand
Wands that are more flexible are created not through choosing a more flexible hardwood, but from a younger tree, and through the choice of shaping when creating the wand. Flexible wands are particularly good for Charms, while stiff wands are better attuned to Offensive and Defensive Magic. Wands near the exact median between flexible and stiff are best for Transfiguration.
There have been some experiments into creating core-less wands from Whomping Willow cuttings, however they have almost inevitably ended up locked in the bottom drawer of the Wandcrafter's desk, as such wands have a tendency to be highly temperamental, and have been known to run away if not secured, much to the displeasure of the nearby population and their knees.
Shaping the Wand
The exterior of the wand is then fashioned from the stick of wood. The method depends on the Wandcrafter. For instance, Ollivander's wands and by extension most British wands, following the trend, are lathed, placed in a magically powered machine, which spins them around and around at high speeds. A tool, a chisel or sanding block, is placed against the wood to round it off evenly all the way around. This method produces uniform, dowel like wands, both pleasing to the touch and to the eye. They are however difficult for a laywizard to identify as belonging to a specific Wandcrafter.
Other Wandcrafters, particularly those from the continent, but a few British Wandcrafters as well, favour hand carving the wood with knives and sand paper, creating a variety of styles, each unique to the Wandcrafter and easily identifiable by consumers. Some wandstyles are so unique and appreciated that they have made it into the Big Screen, or rather, films of the Muggle variety. One such wand that is clearly and easily identifiable due to its crooked, naturalist look is known to Muggles and some Magicals as Cherlindrea's Wand, which was created by an exceptional Muggle-born Wizard who wishes to be known only as L.
The Core
Once the exterior of the wand has been created, the core must be selected. Cores come in a variety of types though there are three, which tend to prevail in England, simply because 96% of the population can be compatible with a wand of these types (and the remaining 4% usually cope with their unusual wand core needs by having a wandcrafter in the family).
These common cores are Phoenix Feather: a bold and persistent core with a long use period, which is unlikely to wear out in the lifetime of the average wizard. The Unicorn hair: a meek, humble, yet powerful core that cannot be wielded by a witch or wizard who intends to do evil with it. Indeed, it will refuse to cast forbidden curses without good cause and revolt against its holder, acting as if it was broken (or in worst cases, as if it has teeth). The final core, more common among all wands, due to the variety, is the Dragon Heartstring.
Dragons that provide our wand cores include: Common Welsh Greens, and Hebridean Blacks: they are an unassuming, and yet versatile wand core, and a sharp, focused core respectively. Chinese Fireballs, Norwegian Ridgebacks, Peruvian Vipertooths, Romanian Longhorns, Swedish Short-Snouts, Ukrainian Ironbellies and Antipodean Opaleyes are also available, though in smaller quantities.
The Fireball makes for wands particularly well attuned to those with a flare for pyro-magics and illusion, while the Ridgeback makes for a good duelling wand. The Vipertooth's heartstring produces a versatile wand, not particularly strong, but capable of precise magic (such as rune carving and curse breaking), while the Longhorn's heartstring makes for an overall powerful wand in the hands of an adept wizard. (It should be noted, however, that the Romanian Longhorn's heartstrings have not been used in new wand production for approximately two decades now, due to their dwindling numbers as any part of said dragon is a Class-A un-tradable good.)
Wands containing the heartstring of a Short-Snout are effective with countering fire-based spells, while those containing the heartstring of an Ironbelly are powerful yet somewhat imprecise wands, making the magical with such a core virtually useless at transfiguration or the more advanced forms of alchemy.
The Opaleye's heartstring is quiet and unassuming, but powerful, quite similar to the Unicorn hair core, except that a wizard with harmful intentions is still capable of wielding it. (We theorise this based on reports of three notable Dark Wizards caught over the last century whose wands, before snapped, were revealed to have said cores. Reference Dark Pasts: A book of our Darkest Hours and the Wizards Who Caused Them).
Other wand cores that are common, (not as common, but certainly not hard to come by if you look) include: Bicorn Horns, which are dropped by the Bicorn each year, Diricrawl Feathers from a living Diricrawl, Doxy Wings, and Crushed Doxy's Legs from dead Doxies, Erumpet Hairs from a living Erumpet, Fwopper Feathers from a living Fwopper, Hippogriff nail filings, from a living Hippogriff, Hippogriff Feather Shafts from a dropped feather (pulling them out is hazardous to your health), Kelpie Hair (off a living Kelpie,) Knarl Quills (usually two, as one is not long enough to span an entire wand,) Manticore Hair, Crushed Minotaur Horn, Runespoor Scales (from a shedding,) and Shrake Spines.
Some more difficult to obtain wand cores, expensive or requiring much scouring to locate, include: Moke Spines, (hard to obtain in one piece, three are required to span the length of the wand), Chimera Mane Hair, which must be collected very carefully from a living Chimera, Occamy feathers (which must be collected when dropped, as to approach an Occamy would be tantamount to suicide), Sphinx Tail Hairs (Sphinxes are very temperamental about that sort of thing), Crushed Erumpet Tusk (from a Dead Erumpet) and Nundu hairs, obtained after a shedding.
Some wands also contain a head hair from various magical beings such as: Veela, Merfolk and Vampires, to name a few. Wands containing said cores however, are exclusively wielded by blood relatives of the beings, or by the beings themselves, where not forbidden by law.
Once the core is selected, it must be placed inside the wand. This is the most delicate procedure in Wandcraft, coming after sanding, but before the varnishing of the wand. The wand is cut open, laterally, by a wand puller (a delicate and precise tool made up of mechanical parts and magical charms, so hard to make that new ones rarely are, and they are instead, passed down from crafter to apprentice, or parent to child - often the same thing). The wand puller holds both sides of the wand, while the crafter uses a coring tool, also a combination of a physical tool and a charm, to cut a small well down one half of the wand, where the core will be laid, before using the wand puller's hinged arm, to replace the top half.
Multiple cores are never (and this cannot be emphasized enough) placed in a wand at the same time. A core can be replaced it's not recommended unless the core has begun to fade (as does happen with many hair cores). The only exception to this rule relates to Being hair cores, which can be paired with another core, especially if it is the Being’s own hair, or the hair of a parent.
The wand is then sealed with a charm, which makes the seam invisible to the naked eye, and then stained, if the crafter chooses to use a stain for aesthetic purposes, and varnished with a thin and quick drying varnish. Most Wandcrafters have their own special varnish, the recipe to which they share only with their apprentice(s).
After this, the standard protection spells are placed on the wand, though it is prudent to note that, by virtue of the core and the wood - both of which have innate magical properties - there is already an inherited protection, but by no means does it make the wand strong enough to persist through extreme abuse.
The other 40%
The other 40% of wandcrafting that remains lies in knowing which bit of wood to pair with which core for the best effect.
Wandcrafters have been known to claim that each piece of wood speaks to them and tells them what kind of wand it wants to be, that each core (even cores of the same type) has a different preference and tells them what sort of wood it wants. This is a hard concept for the average wizard to understand, but not all that different from a sculptor claiming that the media tells them what it wants to be sculpted into.
This cannot be explained in writing, so if you are interested in Wandcraft, you may wish to seek out a qualified Wandcrafter to assist you in furthering your knowledge.
In British Academics
Only the science of Wandcraft can be written; that 60% book knowledge. For this reason, Wandcraft is not taught in European schools (North American schools teach it at a very basic level, and then apprentice the exceptional senior students off.) To be a Wandcrafter in Europe, one must apprentice with an existing Wandcrafter and learn not only what is written, but what is unwritten.
As a Career
A Wandcrafter is considered a craftsman, and thus undergoes their training using the apprentice/journeyman/master system carried over from medieval times, although some of the qualifications have changed.
Apprentice Wandcrafters
Traditionally, those aspiring to the career of Wandcrafter spend roughly 7 years as an apprentice, and should never be promoted to journeyman before the age of 21, regardless of how young they were when first apprenticed. While it was once tradition for them to live with their Master, and collect earnings only in the form of food and lodging, they are now paid about on par with your average Shop Clerk, although this may vary depending on hours worked, as they are paid on weekly stipend, rather than by the hour.
An apprentice is not allowed to craft wands, but observes the master, and assists in sanding, finishing, and shaft carving. They generally spend most of their time at work in the service of their master, but also spend some time in construction of mock-wands, using bits of twine or string for cores, and later discarded unicorn hairs taken from wands needing a hair replacement. Only in the last year of apprenticeship is the apprentice allowed to use 'live' cores.
Journeyman Wandcrafters
One then generally spends another three to four years as a Journeyman Wandcrafter, working in the shops of Masters, sometimes their own these days, sometimes retaining the tradition of travel. When between masters, they may work as a traveling wand repair technician, or even open a small one man shop of their own. Journeymen are not permitted to take apprentices or employ wandcrafters, though they may employ other sorts of business folk for their shop, such as clerks and cleaners.
During this time one works on their Masterpiece in the case of Wandcrafters, a wand, to be presented to a master, often their own, that they may be granted the title themselves. If the work is considered up to the standard of master, then they are promoted to the title. A Journeyman may display no wand in their window, only a sign, lest it be mistaken for their Masterpiece, and give their customers the mistaken belief that they hold Master rank.
Master Wandcrafters
Aside from the prestige of the title Master Wandcrafter is afforded two privileges above the journeyman. The first is to display in the front window of their own shop, their Masterpiece, that customers may see it and know they are at the shop of a Master Wandcrafter. The other privilege is the taking of Journeymen and Apprentice Wandcrafters as employees. The Master Wandcrafter will have far more customers than the Journeyman, and can also charge a higher fee for his wares.
