Duke of 1815

Dice Towers

This post is for my future Son-in-Law. He plays a lot of board games with his friends and was inspired by my dice tower to build one of his own. He enlisted my help, which I gave whole heartedly. I gave him instruction and options, which he could accept or reject, after all this was his project, not mine and he was the one using it.

We went to Spotlight (A Material, Craft and Haberdashery Superstore in Australia) and as soon as he saw this Papier Mache Treasure Chest, he knew exactly what he wanted it to look like.

The first thing he did was to paint all of the bits that would look like iron. With two coats dry, the next, very clever addition was some sheets of paper that had a wood grain pattern on them. He cut the pieces to fit and glued them into position using PVA (Wood) Glue.

As you can see, the wood grained paper looks very realistic.

You can also see a section cut into a flap

We used some strong string to hold the lid open, which is the actual "Dice Tower" part.

He used some toy coins to hide and strengthen the glued point

The die is dropped through the "Key Hole" on the lid

We glued a piece of plastic packing foam in a shape that would let the die drop through but when it hit the bottom, it was deflected through the flap.

The whole thing was covered in cardboard, glued into position and then the paper was glued over that

The die drops into the base of the chest

And there we have it. I was very impressed with the result.

Below is the Dice Tower that I made a couple of years ago for our Wargaming Club's Pirate Month September 19th is "International Talk Like a Pirate Day", so we celebrate the whole month.

We used "The Legends of The High Seas" Rules

I was trying to think of a really "Out There" idea and remembered that I had bought a plastic skull full of lollies on special after Halloween.

I thought that a "Skull Island" Dice Tower

I made a spiral out of plastic packing foam with a sharp craft knife. I placed this, in two sections, into the plastic skull firmly, gluing the bits together with a contact adhesive.

Once this was dry, I cut a piece of 3mm MDF 20cm wide and 30cm long and using newspaper and slightly watered down PVA glue, I Papier Mached the skull onto the MDF. I added a couple of small skulls, more Papier Mache as walls and glued some green felt

I made some skulls with some "Green Stuff" on toothpicks to look more mysterious and foreboding.

If you look closely you can see the plastic packing foam, which I painted black, at the entrance to the cave.

I spread some sand over the wet Papier Mache, Once dry I painted it all a dirt colour. Using some brown "Butcher's String" and some mixed herbs, I formed some vines. I then painted them Dark Green, drybrushing some lighter shades until I was happy.