Want to wield the ultimate sci-fi and fantasy weapon? Even if you don’t, this Sonic Screwdriver Wand by Instructables user CabbitCastle is the perfect prop for your Doctor Who and Harry Potter mash-up costume. He used beech rods, paint, wood stain, and a few power tools to build the combination weapon. He went through a few iterations of the wand design over six months and shared the final one at Instructables. He only used a lathe for the second time ever on this project and after sanding the surface, he added paint and aged the device:

With the black base color I had originally intended to drybrush the Tenths’ Screwdriver to give it an aged silver metal look. For that I used silver acrylic paint, dipped the tip of the brush into it and then spread that paint on my pallet as much as possible so only a hint of paint stayed on the brush, then brushed that onto the Screwdriver. Unfortunately there was so much wood grain left that the result looked bad. Like, really, really bad. Horrible even.

So I started adding more and more color until I got a silver base layer done. If I knew it’d come this far I would’ve just spraypainted it silver in the first place and saved myself some time and effort.

This reminded me once more that while I am decent and building all kinds of structures, I suck at painting. Which is a problem, as this is where any prop really comes to life. I need to work on that. I must find my painting sensei!

Read all the details about building the prop at Instructables. He also created a tutorial on making the TARDIS sonic wand box.