I used to play DnD with some friends. It was a ton of fun. We met weekly for about 4 years before the campaign reached its narrative conclusion. As part of that though, I ended up with a couple sets of nice dice, and even more D6s (level 20 assassin sneak attack!), and I needed somewhere to put them. So as one of my first laser cutter projects, I designed my dream dice box, which has served me for years since. I ended up making a couple of them on commission, so here’s the full process, cobbled together from a couple builds:
I began by trying to find the relationship between layers to make a functioning parallelogram that would fold each layer open to reveal the next set of dice. Once I had this relationship worked out in Illustrator, I made a test box out of MDF.
Once I was happy with it, I laser cut all of the pieces out, including some foam inserts for the dice to sit in, and some engraved leather to stitch into a cover to hold it all together. The wood is a nice pre-finished cherry that looks perfect for the rustic yet refined look I’m going for.
The links between the layers were made from 1/8″ brass. Individually drilled, cut, and sanded. This is by far the most tedious part of the build.
Looking good, but it’s time to finish the leather portion.
I start by dyeing all of the parts in a dark stain. Once that has dried, I lace it up with some cord, stitching everything together, trying to make it all as uniform as I can.
Hot damn!
Now let’s open one of them up, shall we?
I’ve been informed that the acorn nuts I have are a mix of silver and gold, but when I bought them they looked the same to me. One day I’ll remember to swap them out. For now, it doesn’t bother me. They still look about the same in person.
