The Firebolt

The Firebolt began as a branch I found in Heaton Park. I then began to sand all of the bark off the branch to see the nice lighter brown inner wood. Once I had sanded it smooth, I gathered the sawdust from it and mixed it with some PVA glue to make a wood filler that would match the colour of the rest of the branch. Once that set I sanded that smooth and added more layers and continued filling any gaps and crack to reinforce the branch. I did however leave one gap that naturally formed on one side as this acted as the area where the brown part of the wood meets the grey coloured wood.  Then I began flattening the sides of the branch. This allowed me the have the correct shape and also allowed me an easier surface to sketch the side profile onto. I then trimmed the front end to an angle like the actual Firebolt seen in the films. I added a channel onto the other side of the branch to try to match the natural crack. Then I masked off the area that I wanted to eventually paint brown. I then used a grey Deck stain that I already had that was an identical shade to what I saw on my reference images. After several coats, I masked off the parts I had painted grey and painted the other part in a brown colour spray paint. Once that was dry, I imitated a woodgrain effect by adding brown shoe polish and dragging a paper towel across the length of the branch. This also gave the brown slight gloss colour. This actually matched the reference as the brown wood on a firebolt is actually polished to a gloss finish. The last stage of paint was hand painting the runes/symbols with a gold enamel paint. Then I began to glue on smaller branches that I ordered in a bundle from Amazon. I believe these are intended to be used to make Witches brooms for Halloween, however, I placed them in layers to create the tail bristles of the firebolt. To create the metal collar for the rear bristles, I used sections of a gas lift cover for an office chair. I painted these silver and also added some metal pipe holder brackets for the footrests to slot into. I originally planned to use metal tube but I couldn’t easily bend it with the equipment I had access to without collapsing the structure of the pipe. In the end, I used a pipe bending spring inside of some plastic conduit that is normally used to run cables outdoors. I then painted the bent conduit silver and screwed it into the pipe holders on the broom.