Dice Tower & Dice Vault

Materials

For the dice tower, I used “4mm” plywood, but it actually came to 3.4mm. You’ll need to adjust the tab “depth” based on your own material.

For the dice vault, I recommend no less than 10mm thick material for the lid and 25mm thick material for the base.

I also used four 7mm x 1mm rare earth magnets to hold the lid in place.

Tools

• XCarve
• Router table
• Bandsaw

You can grab the Autodesk Fusion 360 files from the ‘digital files’ tab, or you can view them online at

Dice Tower v1
http://a360.co/1M0NmpQ

Dice Tower v2
http://a360.co/1ScVbgw

Dice Vault
http://a360.co/1M4DTBr

These links may let you grab a file that imports better into your tool of choice.

Even though the dice tower could have easily been cut in Easel, the design part of it in 2D space just messed with my head. Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists, so its my CAD/CAM tool of choice.

Since I used Fusion 360 to generate my GCode, I needed to send that using Universal G Code sender.

For the dice tower, a 1/8" bit will be able to cut everything out.

For the dice vault, a 1/8" bit (or possibly even a 1/4"!) is great for the pockets and general shape of the base. For the lid, cut the “top”/outside first using a 1/16" or smaller for the details. You really don’t need to go more than 1mm (0.5mm or even 0.25mm would be fine) deep, so it doesn’t take too long. Switch to a 1/8" or larger bit to cut the lid out, flip it, and cut the underside pocket out.

This really depends on how fancy you want to get. I like ‘simple’ projects like this to play with new techniques so I went with imitation gold leaf and tried my hand at gilding the logo. Alternatively, some paint or burning the lid with a torch and sanding it back would look pretty neat too.

If you opt to go for gilding you’ll need

• size (adhesive)
• Gold leaf (I recommend imitation if this is your first time, a bit cheaper)
• Cotton gloves if you don’t go for gold (so it doesn’t tarnish)
• A gilding brush (or a very soft bristle brush if you’re winging it like I did).
• A top coat (like shellac) to protect the leaf.

The process is

• Lay down a layer of size in the recess. Wherever you put size, the gold leaf will stick to.
• Wait for it to dry but still be tacky
• With tweezers, carefully place some gold leaf over the size. It should stick immediately.
• Wait for the size to dry, and using a brush, brush away all the excess
• Apply your top coat – I recommend blonde dewaxed shellac as it’ll dry quickly and protect the gold leaf. You can always apply whatever top coat over top of the shellac afterwards)

The dice tower can just be slotted together – its a friction fit so you can assemble it and take it down as many times as you like. You could use a dab of just about any type of glue to permanently hold it in place – I used cyanoacrylate (CA, aka super glue) as it bonds instantly and is strong enough, but PVA/wood glue would work just fine – remember, a little bit goes a long way.

For the dice vault there isn’t much assembly needed, a dab of epoxy or CA on the magnets and they get placed in the holes. Make sure you line up the polarity so the magnets attract each other in ‘pairs’ rather than repelling. I used a Sharpie to mark the ‘outside’ of a pair of magnets – that is, the side that gets glued in.