Dice Tower

I designed and built my own dice tower for use in D&D! It is made of 1/4" 5-ply Baltic birch plywood, etched and cut out with a laser cutter at my local maker space, lined with laser-cut wool felt, and assembled with wood glue.

These were my original design ideas. My final design ended up almost exactly like I had originally planned.

A later iteration, on the computer at the maker space, ready to laser cut.

First cut! A little burnt and smoky, but not too bad. I've since learned to really dial in my settings to get clean cuts all the way through the wood (although with plywood, there can be random spots that are tougher to cut through).

First prototype cut out and assembled with masking tape! It fit together great, and only had a couple of mistakes in the design. I was super happy with this! I was really excited to get started on the next iteration.

Here I decided to get fancy. I spent a decent chunk of time adding a brick pattern, with some banners and 20-sided dice to be etched into the wood. I also bought some fancier, more expensive, 7-ply plywood. Surely it'll come out extra fancy!

I read somewhere online that adding some painter's tape could cut down on the smoke staining.

Thaaaat was DEFINITELY not the case... So much fire... It was terrifying to watch, so I just had to cancel the cut job. The wood was totally ruined...

Here is my final design. I took a training class on the more powerful laser at the maker space so that I could get cleaner cuts, and gave it another shot, using the more basic 5-ply wood, and NO tape of any kind. Back to basics.

It came out great! A little smoke, but nothing too terrible. I also went to the fabric store and picked up some grey wool felt. I was unsure of how to attach wood and felt, but randomly saw a youtube video of someone using wood glue. Awesome.

Here it is all assembled, drawbridge up!

D20 banner on the back.

Felt lined all on the inside! It makes SUCH a satisfying noise when you toss some dice down there. Without the felt, it was unpleasantly loud.

The final product! It's not perfect, and it was a long time in the making (quarantine and other distasters didn't help...), but it really makes me happy. Here's hoping I can use it with some friends soon!