Wooden Dice Tower (Magnetic, Foldable)

This project was inspired by a really cool kickstarter from a couple years ago. I thought it was a great idea, and decided to make one of my own.

Materials:

• 1/4" and 5/8" thick wood (this is just what I had laying around; these sizes are not required)
• Wood glue
• 8 small magnets
• Super glue
• Wood stain
• Adhesive-backed felt (you could also use regular felt and glue, but I never have)

Tools:

• Scroll saw or something equivalent
• Drill and a bit the size of the magnets
• Paintbrush/rag for staining

I also used Tinkercad to figure out the basic shape of the tower and see how it looks, which I do for almost all of my woodworking projects (including a chess set!). I have also included a picture of the d20 silhouette that I made in Tinkercad.

I started out by cutting three 6.5" by 3" pieces from the 1/4" wood, and one the same size, 3x6.5, from the 5/8" board. I then cut the 5/8" and one of the 1/4" in half, "hamburger style" (which means I made two 3x3.25 pieces from each).

The first step after cutting the wood to size is to glue one of the thicker blocks onto a 1/4" board, as shown in the pictures. These pieces will be the inside of the upright part of the dice tower. After gluing, it is time to cut out the inside. I do not have a pattern that I printed for the inside parts. I took a square and measured and drew on the part itself. You can do this too! Start on the thicker block of wood, and draw a 1/4" margin on each side. This will keep the part fairly strong and durable, and make some steps easier later on. Next, draw the lines for the entrance and exit holes according to the size that you want. I made them both about an inch and a half wide, which gave me 5/8" thickness on each side. This worked as well as I could have hoped, but if you want to change the size, I would not suggest doing anything smaller than an inch, because dice would probably start getting stuck. After you have the 1/4" walls and the exit holes drawn, all you have to do is connect the holes to the side walls with a 45° line (I used a square for this entire thing, but if you don't have one, you can do a wee bit of arithmetic and measure out the point on the side wall to which you need to draw a line).

Now, move to the thinner part of your workpiece. Draw 1/4" walls on the long sides, and connect them with the out hole in any way you want. I just made an angle from the edge of the hole to the wall, but if you are feeling fancy, this would be a great place for some fretwork. Next, figure out where to put the line at the bottom of the part. For my wood thicknesses of 1/4" and 5/8" and plan to cut an angle of 45° right there (see later steps), I calculated the distance from the bottom to be 1/4 + 5/8 + tan(45°) * 1/4 (45 is the angle you would set your blade to compared to the table). I also drew a line at 1/4 + 5/8 to help with the angle cut.

Now that you have drawn out where to cut, just do it. If you don't know how to use a scroll saw or whatever type of saw you are using, find another instructable or a youtube video. When you are cutting, make sure you go to the first line on the thin part, not the second, and I will explain why.

Once you have cut out the general shape, you need cut the bottom of the part at an angle (see pictures). This will redirect falling dice into the tray, and keep them from bouncing up and out. To do this, set your saw table to the angle you decided on and used for the calculation in the last step, and cut to the second line you drew. On my scroll saw, I can only go 45 degrees in one direction, which means that I ended up with only one sharp edge. To fix this, you can either file the corner a little bit, or flip the blade around on the saw, which is super dangerous and you should not do it.

Anyway, after you cutting this piece, you should sand the inside corners of the thicker part of the part. I have attached a picture that points out where you should sand. However, since most of these edges will be glued to another board, you should not sand the outside of this part at all.

In this step, all you need is glue. And clamps. And files, and your wood of course, and sandpaper. Also if you want a really nice finish, some emery cloth (I used some 2000 grit stuff and I love it). Also, wood stain or paint if you want.

The first step in step three is to glue your last 3 by 6.5 inch board to the back of the piece that you just cut. I cut out a really small part from last step's scrap and glued it to that board to make the dice tumble a little bit more. Be careful when doing this, because some dice might not fit through the tower if you make that part too big. I cut it to about 1/4"x1/4"x1" and rounded the edges before I glued it into the center of the opening.

Note: I thought of something while I was doing this step, and didn't do it because I hadn't decided on paint or stain. If you know what you are going to use to finish the wood, it would be much easier to do the inside of this part right now, as opposed to waiting until it is enclosed, and you could do a much better job on the stain. However, I did not have much of a problem because I used a tiny paintbrush to do all of the inside (and I only did one layer there) and you would not want the stain to be affected by whatever you do in the next steps.

After that glue is done drying, you just have to glue one of the half 1/4" boards to the front of the thicker part. This is the last building step on the upright part of the tower, so now you should file and sand all of the edges and corners so that they are flat, square, and smooth.

The tray is made with the last two pieces of 3.25" x 3" pieces. To start, draw 1/4" to 5/16" walls on the 5/8" piece. Then drill a hole somewhere in the middle, and cut out the rectangle that you drew. Next, cut an angle on the inside of one edge (see pictures). This is the side that will connect to the tower. After that, just glue the bottom onto the tray, and you are done! As with the last step, this is a good time to file and sand all of the edges and corners to be flat, square, and smooth.

This is, perhaps, one of the most complicated steps in this project, only because it requires a bit of thinking. First, mark each location that you want a magnet. I suggest starting with the top of the tray and marking everything else so that the tray and tower will fit together. I have attached a picture to show where I marked. Be very careful in this step, because if the magnets do not line up, it will affect the structural integrity of the tower.

Next, measure the diameter of your magnets and find a drill bit of the same or slightly smaller diameter (you should experiment with the fit of the magnets in different size holes on some scrap wood of the same type, and cut them out when you are done). Drill shallow holes in each of the magnet's locations, just slightly deeper than the magnets. Now, starting from the front of the tower, insert each of the magnets. I used a bit of gorilla glue in each hole, because the force from other magnets when you connect them can pull them out of their holes. The first magnets you do should be the ones on the front of the tower, as shown in the pictures, and from there you can put a magnet on one of those and set the other part on top in the way you will when the project is finished. Alternately, you can put a pair of magnets together, mark the outsides with a sharpie, and insert them, sharpie-side in, into a part. Be very careful not to make a pair of magnets repel each other when the tower is assembled or folded up, because that would be just terrible. After you have all the magnets in place, you can press them in using a flat piece of a hard wood so that they are flush with the edges of the part. Sand off as much glue residue as you can.

This is another difficult step if you are not experience with wood staining. A bad stain can ruin a project, but a good stain will make a project more good. If you decide to use a paint or clear polyurethane spray paint, you can skip this step and wing it on your own. If you are an experienced woodworker, you should leave a comment give me some pointers. If you have never stained anything before, I have a few tips.

Read the instructions on the can. This will tell you how to prepare the part for staining, and will involve sanding and cleaning and stuff. It will also tell you the ideal number of layers, the time to wait between coats, and the time it will take to dry completely.

Use tiny amounts of stain, and do tons of layers. A stain with many thin layers will be infinitely better than a stain with one thick layer. You will end up with a beautiful, smooth, drip-free finish.

Have good timing. This is a little tricky while you are applying stain. If you spend too long brushing one spot, the stain will start to become sticky, and if you keep brushing, you will end up with a grainy finish. In between coats, your stain will tell you how ling to wait. My favorite mahogany stain that I used for this project says to wait for an hour. Some other polyurethane I have says to wait for four hours. The people who made the stain know more about it than you, so you should follow the directions they give you.

The last step is to make the tray look nice. I have some Kelly Green adhesive-backed felt left over from a chess set that I made, and I decided to use it for this.

To start, you should measure very carefully the inside dimensions of your tray. If you remember what size you cut it, that is great. Draw a pattern on the back of the felt using those dimensions (see pictures), and make the tab where the angle is a little longer. Once you cut out the felt, pull of the paper on the back and stick it in your tray. I just stuck it in the middle very loosely so that I could align it to the edges. Stick the felt to the edges of the tray. To get nice sharp corners, I use the scissors that I cut the felt with to press the felt into the corners of the box. After I did that, I trimmed off the excess felt and squished down the parts that stuck up, and I was finished!

I decided that this tower, however useful, was a little bland. A simple decoration would make it look much better. I hopped on tinkercad to try out a few designs, and decided to go with a simple d20 silhouette. I just pulled out an icosahedron and cut out one of the sides. Then I went to orthographic view, viewed it from the side, and printed a screenshot. I taped the paper to some extra 1/4" wood I had, and cut out the shape. I sanded, stained, and glued it to the front of the tower. Now it looks a little more interesting (and you can also sort of tell what it is when it's folded up).

If you did this project and made it this far, congratulations! If you read this far, also congratulations! I am looking forward to getting feedback on this project from people and hearing what you think. Also, let me know if you did this project or something similar. Happy gaming!