Lego Brick Tape Dispenser

I currently don't have an organized way of organizing my tape in an organized fashion. But with the amount of painting that I've been doing recently, and with the amount of painters tape that I've been purchasing, I figured it would be a good time to get organized - or at least get my tape organized.

So I came up with the idea to make some Lego-inspired bricks to store my tape in, and make them stack-able and connect-able, just like their smaller counterparts.

For materials, I used:

1/2 birch plywood (although you can use any type of wood and thickness, depending on how big you want the bricks to be)
Neodymium magnets (I used .315 discs)
Wood glue
Small saw blade (optional)
Clamps
A saw (table or miter)
Sander

Before jumping in and building the Lego brick, I went into Sketchup and designed out what I wanted the dispenser to look like. I fit it to be just slightly bigger than a new roll of tape, with a center disc to fit the roll of tape around, as well as the discs that go on the lid. The bottom of the box will sit 1/2" about the outer walls to allow for the dots from one box to fit into the base of another (This distance will vary depending on what thickness of wood you use to make the box)

The tape I'm using is 1" thick, so I cut strips of the plywood to 2" (1" for the tape, 1/2" for the bottom, and 1/2" for the dots of another Lego brick to fit inside the base of the box)

I then cut 4 - 5 1/2" pieces, and cut each end to 45 degrees. I took one side on one of the pieces, and cut it slightly shorter, to allow the tape to feed through to the outside of the box. I set my saw to 1/4" depth, and set my track to 1/2" to start cutting a track in each piece for the bottom.

I then cut a 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" piece for the base, and made sure it fit in the grooves that I cut on the side pieces.

I used the roll of tape and traced out 2 circles to fit in the center of the base for the roll of tape to fit around. I cut the circles out, and sanded them just slightly smaller than the cutouts to allow room for the roll of tape to move inside the brick.

I then glued it all together. At this point, you can cut a piece of the small saw blade into the length of the opening of the box, and glue it on. Once set, put the tape in, feed it through the opening, and tear it off on the teeth of the saw blade, or the edge of the wood if you don't have a small saw blade

I cut a 6" x 6" piece of plywood out, and then cut 4 - 1 1/2" diameter circles for the dots. I measured and marked the lid to make sure to place the dots in the right spots to allow the lid to fit into the base of another brick, and then glued and clamped the dots onto my marks on the lid.

After calculating the center marks for each hole that needed drilled (4 on the base and 4 on the lid), I drilled shallow holes at my marks and glued in my magnets to the lid. MAKE SURE to get the positive/negative placement right on each of the matching magnets, otherwise your lid won't close!

Depending on the thickness of your walls, and the size of your magnet, you can either drill holes directly in the walls, like I did, and glue your magnets in, or you can add some pieces to the corners of the box to allow you more room to glue in some magnets.

Depending on what kind of look you're going for, you can now paint the brick to look like a real (big) Lego, or you can stain the box, or just oil the box.

Whichever way you choose, it will add character to each of the Lego bricks you make

Depending on how many rolls of tape you have, you can repeat the process and create several boxes. And depending on what size tape you have, you can create different size Lego bricks to house each of your rolls of tape.