Portable Dice Tower

Are you bored of just rolling the dice with your hands? Have you ever wanted a dice tower? Do you want to impress your families and friends? I remember learning about D&D and finding many dice tower products online I thought "Maybe I can make my own and save money!" Well now you can make your own with very little materials! This tower I made rolls your dice when you drop it from the top! And I made it portable and compact too!

You will only need a hot glue gun, a cutter, a scissor, a cutting board or a surface to work on, pencil and eraser, metal ruler, and a large flat-rate mailing box from USPS that you can grab for free! (I recommend getting 2 boxes in case you make errors or need more cardboard). X-ACTO knife is optional for the detailed cuts.

Starting with the cardboard, separate the connected seams carefully so you can lay the entire box flat.

Map out and measure the cutouts with pencil and ruler, be sure to draw on the side with no labels or prints as shown. There will be four panels, but we will only be using 3. Center the door and windows by finding the middle points of the walls, mark them with pencils. There are two builds, A and B, feel free to write them on the cutouts to avoid confusion.

After mapping out the lines with pencil, carefully cut the lines you drew with the cutter and ruler. Once you have them all removed, separate all the A parts from the B parts.

Next we will cut the doors, cut the red lines as shown. Be sure to have the doors above 1/2 an inch above the base.

On the backside of the door, use the pencil with the ruler to crease/indent into the cardboard following the grain. It is important not to puncture through so be gentle. This allows the door to open easily without damaging the cardboard. Gently push the doors in from the brown side of the cardboard.

Next, cut the bottom of the doors at an angle of about 30 degrees, this will be explained later. You can use a scissor for this if it's easier.

Now we'll assemble the inner tower (Build A). Starting with A3, hot glue the right side as shown, and quickly attach it to A4 or A5 as shown with the red figure. Be sure the crenelations (top castle part) are all similarly facing up.

Reinforce the connection by gluing the inside of the corners of the walls.

Next, we attach the gate that we just cut out. Again, be sure to attach it as shown in the red figure I made. Don't forget to reinforce the connections again in the corners.

Now we will use the A1 and A2 pieces (ramps). Before gluing them to the inside we need to shorten the 3 inch side by 0.25 cm so it is 2 15/16 inches. This is to help us glue the last wall securely. Trim both parts with a scissor.

Starting with A1, have the trimmed edge face towards you, hot glue the edges that will be touching the walls as shown, and be sure A1 is angled down towards the gate (left wall). I drew a red line to illustrate how far of an angle it should be. There should be a 1 inch gap between the left wall and the A1 part.

Once the glue settles, reinforce the bottom ramp corners like in the previous steps.

On to the second ramp (A2), make sure the trimmed edge is towards you, and glue it 1 inch above the doors. Again, angled downwards away from the door with a 1 inch space between it and the right wall. Reinforce again the bottom ramp of A2 after it holds.

Next is A8. Before gluing it in place, put the piece inside at an angle where the 3 inch is touching the bottom of the cut door and the right wall, and check to see if the door opens easily with the angled cut we made earlier. Glue the opposite edge from you and push A8 all the way in to remove any wasted space. This piece will bounce the dice out the tower!

Now for the doors. I know the doors won't hold open so we have to glue it open. Cut from the remaining cardboard a 1 x 1.5 inch piece, and by using your thumb, glue and attach it to the left door and wall. Be sure to have the grains vertical as shown in the picture, this helps it bend and flex to give the entrance a nice funnel.

Next, we will glue A7 at the very bottom. Start by gluing one edge and insert it so it attaches the middle wall. Have this piece be flush with the bottom walls as shown in red. After the glue dries, reinforce the inside corners of A7. For hard to reach places, you can pick up the castle, angle it, and squeeze the got glue gun to drip the glue with the help of gravity. It's okay to be messy here since no one will see inside after we close it with the last wall.

After that is done, it's time for the last wall. Simply glue the edge of the wall just like the first one, and then quickly glue all the edges of the inner tower facing towards you, except for the right wall. After all the walls are put together, affix the right door to the wall just like with the left door from before with the 1 x 1.5 cardboard piece.

And there you go, the inner tower is done! From here you have a choice, you can choose to stop here if you're happy with it, or you can proceed to Build B which is the case. If you decide to settle with the inner tower, you can go ahead and cut the windows with an X-ACTO knife or cutter. Just be careful not to damage the ramps too much.

Finally, for the outer tower simply glue the edges of the towers one by one, starting with the gate. Be sure to follow the red layout as shown. Once the walls are assembled, simply glue the base (B5) to the bottom as shown, and this time it is sticking out beneath the walls, not inserted inside between the walls and flush.

Tada! Hope you enjoyed the journey, I know projects can get long and tedious but that's part of the art. From here you can paint the tower however you like and hot glue trinkets for decorations. But don't use watercolor, use acrylic or crayons or color pencils. Watercolor can be absorbed by the cardboard and ruin it. And be sure not to leave thick patches of acrylic on the tower, you have to even the layer out and thin it, otherwise the cardboard layer will peel.