u/GumboDiplomacy

All taken today in New Orleans City Park

I work at a small brewery and whenever we release a certain style of beer (West coast Pilsner) we name it after a DnD spell/skill.

I've gotten back into carving lately so I've been taking scrap pieces of wood and turning them into two handles for work for fun. However the boss wants to pay me for this one so that's pretty cool.

This is a piece of walnut, I think? It started as a 2x2 cutoff that I carved into a wizard staff. Pretty proud of this one. After shaping I went with three different finishes. Rubio monocoat black, dark roast, and cinnamon brown. I actually started black first, then sanded down to apply dark roast, then more sanding to add the cinnamon brown. Going darkest to lightest actually worked somehow. Then an acrylic paint down some of the grooves and a gloss clear coat on the acrylic, matte for the rest. All in all this is about 10 hours of work. I learned a lot, but I'm generally proud of the outcome.

I work at a brewery and we have a rotating type of beer(West coast Pilsner) that is always named after a spell/skill from DnD. So I decided to carve an appropriate tap handle for it. I thought y'all might think it's cool. I'm not a big DnD guy(played and dropped out of a couple campaigns a decade ago) but I always enjoyed the concept, just never been in a position to fully commit to a campaign.

Also unfortunately I can only attach one picture at a time it seems

I've gotten back into carving lately so I've been taking scrap pieces of wood and turning them into two handles for work for fun. However the boss wants to pay me for this one so that's pretty cool.

This is a piece of walnut, I think? It started as a 2x2 cutoff that I carved into a wizard staff. Pretty proud of this one. After shaping I went with three different finishes. Rubio monocoat black, dark roast, and cinnamon brown. I actually started black first, then sanded down to apply dark roast, then more sanding to add the cinnamon brown. Going darkest to lightest actually worked somehow. Then an acrylic paint down some of the grooves and a gloss clear coat on the acrylic, matte for the rest. All in all this is about 10 hours of work. I learned a lot, but I'm generally proud of the outcome.

I'm open to general advice, but one major question: The last photo is the hardware that gets sunk into one side of the wood and the finer thread interfaces with the tap itself. I've been just putting that piece into my drill chuck to sink it, but it obviously slips and flattens the threads. Even with pre drilling it never sinks quite deep enough and it's kind of a one chance operation. Any suggestions on a more effective method for accomplishing this?