The Best Wood for Wands

What is the Best Wood to Use for a Magic Wand?

WandWood Guide
Acacia.
Alder.
Apple.
Aspen.
Beech.
Birch.
Blackthorn.
Black Walnut.

However, while British Originals provides a list of many options, they do not identify the best wood for wands.

The best wood to use for making a wand is tempered maple.

There are several reasons why roasted or thermally treated maple is the optimal wood for making wands. Below, I tell you how I encountered this question. Also, I explain how I reached this conclusion.

5/4 Roasted Quartersawn Rock Maple guitar neck blanks. — 5/4 Roasted Quartersawn Sugar Maple blanks.

Harry Potter and Wand Wood

My older daughter Molly was and is a huge Harry Potter fan. For reference, when she was seven years old she read the entire Harry Potter series seven times (around 28,000 pages). I’m not sure I’ve read that many pages of anything, cumulatively.

Accordingly, when a Harry Potter fan like Molly asks me about wizardry, I’m clueless. However, when the question involves wood, game on.

So, a while ago, Molly asked, “What is the best wood for wands?” I did not have an answer ready. Thus, I stalled and bought some time. “Let me research this in the The Wood-Database and get back to you.”

In truth, I only said that to buy time. Yet, out of desperation, I searched The Wood Database. However, there was no information on wands.

Ugh. Eric has every fringe wood-related topic on that site. Now what?

Researching Wood Wands Online

Next, I shifted my search away from traditional wood resource sites. Instead, I checked into magic and fantasy oriented sites.

I found out several important pieces of wood wand making information.

Wands are made from various woods but contain magical elements in their core.

According to the Pottermore website, the core can be made up of dragon heartstring, unicorn hair or phoenix feather. Unfortunately, I am a muggle. Accordingly, my unicorn resources are limited. Thus, I focus my attention on identifying a wood with otherworldly-properties.

Garrick Ollivander is the world’s best wand maker.

In the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Garrick Ollivander is an authority on magic wands. The famed wand-maker is known for recalling the specifications of all his wood wand creations. In fact, here is how the Harry Potter Lexicon website describes Ollivander:

Garrick Ollivander is an old wandmaker – “the best” according to British witches and wizards – who who runs Ollivander’s on Diagon Alley (HBP6). He has eerie, moon-like eyes and makes Harry a bit uncomfortable, as he seems just as fascinated by the power of wands used for evil as those used for good. Ollivander remembers every wand he has ever sold, and greets people by rattling off the specifications of their wands (PS5, DH24). Garrick Ollivander comes from a long line of wandmakers, many of whom have names starting with the letter G.

source: The Harry Potter Lexicon, n.d., Wizard Garrick Ollivander,

In fact, Harry Potter understood the Deathly Hallows primarily as a result of listening to Garrick’s insights regarding wand lore.

Ollivander Uses Maple to Make Wands.

Clearly, a person of Ollivander’s expertise chooses his wand woods carefully. Accordingly, if he uses Maple for wand wood, it must be an optimal material.

Interestingly, Ollivander is not the only wand maker who recommends maple. White’s Wands out of Canada also recommends maple for wand construction. Here is their assessment of maple as a magical wood:

MAPLE is a tree associated with magic and mystery for the Great Horned Owl is said to be its guardian. It is a wand of travelers and stories, of sending and receiving and of communication in general. The life-giving sap of the beautiful maple tree infuses spells that celebrate the sweetness of life. It allows us to touch visions of beauty and may bring forth renewal of the spirit as well as bring about more abundance and creativity and all matter of food for the soul. With strong feminine and masculine energies, it is a tree that represents transmutation and the powerful natural cycles of death and rebirth, the eternal rhythm that supports and nurtures us as we walk through this world. Through focusing a maple wand towards that which we are wanting to know, we may grow intellectually and, with this new knowledge, make powerful changes in our lives. In this same way, a maple wand may help us access a new sense of inner strength and allow us to experience great moments of personal empowerment.

source: White’s Wands, n.d., Magical Wand Wood Properties.

J.K. Rowling Said Maple Wood Wands Are For High Achievers.

J.K. Rowling, otherwise known as Joann Rowling, knows about high achievements. The wildly successful author worked as a secretary while writing her first Harry Potter draft. Seven years later, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published. Thereafter, her ascent into literary history began.

In Wand Woods, Rowling states the following:

This a beautiful and desirable wood, and wand quality maple has long been a mark of status, because of its reputation as the wand of high achievers.

source: Rowling, J.K. (10 August, 2015) Wand Woods, https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wand-woods.

Indeed, this is high praise from a very qualified source,

Harry Potter saved the Diadem from a fire.

However, this was no ordinary fire. It was a magic fire, called Fiendfire.

Fire is recurring theme throughout the Harry Potter series. References include: The Goblet of Fire, Protego Diabolica, Floo Powder, etc.

Harry Potter Context Clues Suggest Roasted Maple is the Best Wood for Wands.

Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) is obviously a great choice for wand wood. In addition to the greatest wand-maker of all time using maple, it has the following wand-friendly properties:

Durability. It’s a tough wood with a Janka rating of 1450.
Machining. Maple turns, paints, stains and glues well. While wands don’t necessarily have to be stained, glued or painted, turning is likely.
Sustainability. J.K Rowling and Garrick Ollivander are unlikely to endorse any wood specie that is endangered. Not surprisingly, Sugar Maple is a well managed specie. It is listed in the IUCN Red List as a Specie of Least Concern.

Tempered Maple Has Magical Properties (Sort of).

Tempered or torrefied maple is wood that has been heat treated at high kiln temperatures. The results are similar what happens when wood is burned.

The maple’s color transforms from light to dark.
Cells within the wood collapse. They are unable to absorb or release moisture significantly. It defies Nature.
Roasting wood is done at very high temperatures. Similarly, the Fiendfyre spell unleashes fire at such a high temperature, it can destroy a Horcrux. Clearly, it also collapses wood cells.

In sum, I’ve laid out a solid case for the use of Roasted Maple for wand wood. Molly seemed to think so. She said, “That’s great, Dad. Now how about making me a wand?”

Read Steve Ondich's answer to What is the best wood for a wizard's wand? on Quora