Dice are thought to have been around for thousands of years. In this time, though, very little has been done to advance or innovate on this technology. While materials have changed and the methods for making dice have also moved forwards, you’re still stuck rolling your dice by hand like some sort of caveman.
Don’t despair: we are here to resolve your woes! This article will be exploring how to build your own dice tower; one that will enable you to cast aside the shackles of manual dice rolling, giving you the freedom to play tabletop game after tabletop game without arguing about whether someone is rolling the dice incorrectly.
What Is a Dice Tower?
At this point, you may be asking yourself “What is a dice tower?”. Simply put, a dice tower is a contraption that has been designed to produce fair dice rolls for those who like to play tabletop games.
From Monopoly to Dungeons & Dragons, a dice tower can provide you with truly random results to each of your rolls. This makes them ideal for those who are a stickler for the rules, while also providing more easy-going players with a simple way to roll the dice.
Choosing Your DIY Dice Tower Design
Before you start building your dice tower, you’re going to need to choose a design. We have already made a list of some of our favorite DIY dice tower projects found around the web, and this can help you to get started with your own DIY dice tower.
Materials & Building Methods
One of the key considerations you need to make when building a DIY dice tower is the materials you will be using. We will be 3D printing our dice tower, but you could consider making your own dice tower from metal, wood, and even cardboard.
Our DIY Dice Tower of Choice
We have chosen to create one of the dice towers from the article mentioned above. This tower looks like a real castle tower, with windows, doorways, and even multiple rolling routes for your dice. This makes it a great project to get started with when you’re new to 3D printing.
You can find the design we have used on Thingiverse under the name Three-Path Dice Tower V.2, and the files were originally created by a user called Bainite.
You will notice a lot of files when you download this project. You can choose to print the dice tower in one piece or in separate parts. While our printer has ample space for the full design, we decided to make our dice tower in separate pieces so that we could do it in shorter prints.
How to Make a Dice Tower
If you’ve decided to make the same dice tower as us, you can follow the guidelines below from start to finish. For those building different dice towers, though, you may need to look up instructions from the original designer to get the best results.
This build will take most people less than an hour once they have all of the parts printed.
1. Download the Files
First up, you will need to download the files for your dice tower before you can print it. You can either choose Download All Files or go to the Thing Files section to download only the files you need. We used the following files for our finished DIY dice tower.
- 1st_Floor_V2.stl
- 2nd_Floor_V2.stl
- 3rd_Floor_V2.stl
- Top_Floor_V2.stl
- Left_Stair_V2.stl
- Right_Stair_V2.stl
2. Prepare Each File for Printing
With your files in hand, you will be ready to start preparing them for printing. We did nothing special with our own files, with the exception of adding supports to the archways and other large overhangs found in some of them.
We went for speed over quality with our prints, printing at the fastest speed our printer can reasonably handle. We also used a 0.3mm layer height, making the piece less detailed while dramatically reducing printing time.
3. Print Your Files
Now it’s time to settle in and get comfortable; this step is going to take a while. For us, the total print time of this piece was 24 hours. With slower printing, it would be easy to add another ten or even 20 hours, and you could probably make it even longer.
4. Join the Parts Together
Putting your dice tower together should be nice and easy. The files that we have printed have small holes cut into them that have been designed to accommodate 8mm x 3mm disc magnets. We wanted to make this whole project from 3D printed parts, though.
Instead of using magnets, we decided to print our own 8mm x 6mm cylinders to replace them. Using a touch of superglue, you can add these cylinders to the holes on your prints, being careful to distribute them properly.
You can choose to either leave your project in pieces with the cylinders holding the whole thing together when you use it or to glue the whole thing in place. This part of the process will only take you a few minutes.
5. Have Fun With Your DIY Dice Tower
With your DIY dice tower assembled, it’s time to start playing some games. Your dice tower is extremely versatile, making it ideal for a host of different games. The way that this tower is built gives you loads of ways to customize the one you are using,
Why Build Your Own Dice Tower?
Building your own dice tower can be a satisfying project that results in something that you will be able to use on a regular basis. You can take out the frustration that may come with dice rolling in certain games, replacing it with the easy process of dropping your dice into a hole.
Of course, some people may still prefer to roll the dice with their hands, and this means that you may find yourself getting little use from your dice tower. You can’t tell this until you’ve tried using one for your gaming, however, making it well worth giving this project a try to make sure that you aren’t missing out on an improved gaming experience.
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