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Tim Scott
United States
West Fargo
North Dakota
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I had someone send me a trade proposition today for a dice tower. Since I had the time, I figured I'd document my process. Note that these instructions are slightly different that the ones I submitted in my other thread (YADIYDT). I think they are simpler, but when adding in the texture it does get to be a bit time consuming.
A majority of the instructions simply reference the grid show on the foam-core I picked up. Note that each grid square corresponds to 1/2" (therefore 2 x 2 grid squares = 1 square inch). Non-gridded foam-core is cheaper but I'm lazy and wanted to avoid measuring as much as possible.
Here's what the end product will look like:
Read on for the steps...
Step 0: Supplies and Tools!
You'll need the following items as shown in the picture. Hot glue gun, spray adhesive or glue stick (optional - for texturing), foamcore board (I picked up 30"x20" pair for $10), exacto knife, box cutters, paper cutter or scissors, pencil or marker, d20 (for calibration, of course!) A metal ruler is a MUST unless you like cutting your fingers. If you are texturing your tower, you'll need some cardstock paper and a color printer.
Shoot me an e-mail for the textures file, or go to www.spiralgraphics.biz and grab the textures yourself. I just used gimp for formatting and laying everything out.
Step 1: Cut the tower pieces.
I made the tower pieces all 7 grids x 20 grids tall. I picked an odd number for the width because I wanted to make some crenellations. Why? Because they really give it that cool "tower" look. Also, I just like to say that word -- crenellations. Heh.
The upper two interior platforms (the things the dice bounce on) need to be 7 grids x 4 grids. The lower interior platform is 7 grids x 7 grids. Of course I mis-measured when I began and I made the lower platform 7 x 8. Let this be a warning -- measure twice, cut once.
You will also need to make 6 triangles. Give them a height of 2 grids and base width of 4 grids.
Cut your crenellations (there's that word again!) and reduce the size of one of the sides by 3 (so that it's 7 grids x 17 grids instead of 20). This will serve as the front of the tower.
Step 2: Texturize. If you are cool with a plain white tower, then skip these steps. Otherwise, print out the texture templates I made from the fine textures available www.spiralgraphics.biz. I printed these on a nice heavy cardstock.
Dry fit things. The goal here is to "wrap" the pieces so the white underlying posterboard is hidden. You'll see to get things to fit nice, I had to cut out the corners.
Once the dry fit looks good, take the textures spray adhesive to the back (or use a glue stick). Make sure to get the adhesive uniformly over the back of the paper. After that, stick the texture on the foam core cutouts for the sides and platforms.
You'll notice that the back and front textures don't extend to cover up the side edges. That's intended. These will be hidden by a subsequent step. The sides of the tower have the foam edges wrapped.
I used my exacto knife to eyeball the crenellation cuttings. Take these and fold them over. A later step will cover this up.
TIP ALERT: Make sure you orient your platforms correctly in terms of how the texture is aligned. The texture is of some shingles. You don't want them going sideways.
Step 3: Hot glue the triangles to the platforms. Do you know what a hypotenuse is? That's the edge that needs to be glued. The 2 grid height of the triangle should align with the back edge of each platform. The side of the triangle should align with the side of the platform. Look at the photos for clarification:
TIP ALERT #2: Triple check the orientation of the shingles texture before hot gluing the triangles. You don't want your shingles going up do you?
Hot glue one side to the back side of the tower. Make sure the textures are point in and your crenellations match up (in other words, don't glue something in upside-down or backwards!)
Step 4: Hot glue the upper and lower platforms in place. Do this by putting glue on the white face of the triangle and on the back edges (ie. the triangle 'height' sides).
Step 5: Hot glue the front to the side. Remember, the front will be the shorter than the other pieces! 
From the outside, your tower at this point should look something like this:
Step 6: Hot glue the center platform in place.
Step 7: Now the tricky part. hot glue the final side in place. It's tricky in that your sides might not line up so you'll have to hold things in place until the glue sets. The terrific thing about hot glue is that it sets fairly quickly.
Step 8: Print out the textures for the front and sides. These will help cover up and blend the textures applied in a previous step.
Next up: How to make the tray
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Tim Scott
United States
West Fargo
North Dakota
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The previous steps showed the (somewhat) difficult part of making the tower. The tray by comparison is pretty easy and a matter of taste. Are you going to aesthetics or simply utilitarian design? The first couple of towers that I've made have included trays that have an angled upper edge. The last tower I made was a simple square tray. I like them both.
Step 1: Figure out the shape you are looking for. In this tutorial, I made the back side 6 grids high and the front side 3 grids high. The length was one grid longer than the height of the tower (21 grids vs. 20 grids). This gives enough room so you can store the tower standing up inside the tray.
Use the tower to help determine the width of the front and back pieces. The width needs to be the width of the tower + the thickness of two foam core pieces. A tape measure here is your friend. Cut the front and back pieces in simple square shapes.
TIP ALERT: These sides are a bit higher, but keep wild dice from flying out of the tray. If you prefer a lower profile, simple tray, just cut the sides of the tray so they are 2 grids high all the way around. This is what I did for the dark tower you see at the end of this tutorial.
Step 2: Print and texture the tray pieces. This is similar to the method above for the tower sides.
Step 3: Building around the tower, hot glue the tray sides together. Be sure not to glue the sides to your tower!
After gluing the sides together, remove the tower and use the tray as a template for tray bottom. Cut it out, texture it, and glue to the bottom of the tray sides.
Step 4: Print and texture the sides of the tray. In the example, I made the texture look like water (tower - moat - get it?)
DONE!
Here are some more shots.
Here are some shots of a dark tower I made. The tray bottom has a flagstone look to it. Also, I cutout the windows complete with vanes. The tricky part here is aligning the windows so you don't cut into the triangles that are holding the interior platforms in place.
The dark tower looks nice, but the cut, white edge of the cardstock is REALLY noticeable. To get around this, use a black marker to darken it up. This can be time consuming -- especially around the crenellations. Yay! I got to use that word again. 
Last but not least, my very first prototype. Note the untextured edges.
Each tower is a learning experience. Feel free to experiment and let your imagination go crazy!
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Peter
Canada
Port Coquitlam
British Columbia
Makers of Battlefields of Olympus
MoFo Max Payne Yo
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Excellent work! I saw your finished tower and was inspired to build mine last week. I didn't follow any particular set of instructions, but chose to design one from scratch.
I used a 45 degree slope for my baffles and put slats in the walls where i cut out tabs on the individual baffles to insert into them. I figured this would be stronger than gluing the foam to the walls. In addition, I put a triangle support piece beneath each baffle. I cut out a tab on the triangle and inserted it into a slat in the walls. The whole thing connected together (including the sides) like a big 3D jigsaw puzzle. I glued the whole thing together and wrapped the outside with a photo of a nebula.
I added felt and soft foam stars to make the dice tumble more randomly.
Here are some images...
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wow, you people are pros. fantastic work!
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Tim Scott
United States
West Fargo
North Dakota
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Very cool! Great to see what you came up with!
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Tim Scott
United States
West Fargo
North Dakota
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On today's episode of "Pimp My Dice Tower", you'll see what I came up with after discovering the "cottage" texture. Heh!
I call it: "A Tribute to Agricola".
Cheers!
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Tim Scott
United States
West Fargo
North Dakota
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This is what happens when the wife cancels "date night"!
Heh! Aztec temple themed dice tower. Inspired after someone asked me to make them a dice tower to complement The Adventurers: The Temple of Chac.
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Peter
Canada
Port Coquitlam
British Columbia
Makers of Battlefields of Olympus
MoFo Max Payne Yo
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*wow* Impressive! Is this a simple variant of your other tower designs?
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Tim Scott
United States
West Fargo
North Dakota
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Variant: yes. Simple: no.
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**PUNKLE JOSH** [Here to have fun!]
Canada
Cambridge
Ontario
"The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing." --A. Alvarez
“My opinion is that a game has its own life when published, and is really alive when players want to add their own house rules!” --Bruno Cathala
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TScott wrote: Aztec temple themed dice tower.
WOW!!!
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Peter
Canada
Port Coquitlam
British Columbia
Makers of Battlefields of Olympus
MoFo Max Payne Yo
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For the Aztec temple themed dice tower, can you put together a brief description of how this was done and maybe a link to the images you used.
This one is just too cool not to replicate.
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Tim Scott
United States
West Fargo
North Dakota
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JohnnySchmaser wrote: For the Aztec temple themed dice tower, can you put together a brief description of how this was done and maybe a link to the images you used. This one is just too cool not to replicate.
Sure. The main texture came from:
http://www.spiralgraphics.biz/packs/brick_block/index.htm
I took the Mayan block texture and used Gimp to alter the color. If I recall correctly, I also used the Greenish Brick with the color altered similarly and size shrunk down to make it look like a lot of steps.
The interior part of the tray comes from the graphics here on BGG for The Adventurers. I took some of the photos for the card backs and turned them into what you see in the photo.
As far as the tower itself goes, I built the internal part first. More or less the standard box tower you see in the instructions above. The main alteration was to have the bottom plat/tongue/whatever you want to call it sticking out further, and also having the bottom opening a little bit larger than usual. I knew this was going to be covered up with my triangular stair piece.
To get the step effect, I just cut strips about 4 inches tall and glued them around the base tower. I did this by starting towards the top and then working my way down. Each subsequent "step" overlaps the step above it by an inch or so - 3 visible inches to 1 overlap inch. I did this all the way down to the bottom. Since there was a sizable gap starting on the third step, I just glued a bunch of scrap pieces on the inside to keep things stable.
The top piece (with the windows) actually comes off. I did that by just making another piece that fit inside the top of the base tower... and added some strips to serve as columns to keep it in place without having to glue it.
The front stairs were tricky. I knew the height of each "step" and the width of the edge (thickness of the foam core). I took a long scrap piece and cut an outline on that so it would be flush with the steps. I was close and was able to use that as a template, adjusting where my measurements weren't exact. From that, all I needed was a triangular piece to cover it up.
The tower does have one design flaw I still haven't determined the best way to correct. The tray doesn't have a really good compression fit so as the dice hit it, it tends to inch away from the tower. I can just glue it into place, but that makes storage a pain. I could pin it into place with a toothpick or two I'm thinking. Just haven't taken the time to do that yet.
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Tim R
United States
Virginia
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I just built one from plans someone posted here, where the baffles are slotted into the sides. I used a boxing theme since I just recently got into DICE boxing!
I patterned it after the gym in the movie "Rocky". It isn't triangular shapped like the real building but a man's got to know his limitations! 
At least I have "Mighty Mick's Boxing" on it and a drawn image of the boxing ring used in the fight between Rocky and Apollo Creed for the dice to roll out on!
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Posted Sun Nov 29, 2009 7:54 am
