Castle DM Screen with Dice Towers (Mostly Final - Painted)
Nov 10, 2015 16:29:15 GMT
tauster, indigo777, and 9 more like this
Post by wilmanric on Nov 10, 2015 16:29:15 GMT
I was at Michael's Arts and Crafts the other day when I came upon this wooden castle. It is meant to be a dollhouse of sorts. It folds up. It has some storage and it was just dying to be crafted into a cool DM Screen.
I had a 50% off coupon, so I think it was $12. Not bad.
On the right-hand side of each section, you'll see a "stairwell." I'm going to tear those out and replace them with dice towers. One that rolls "out" toward the players and one that rolls "in" toward me. (Spoiler alert: I lose my mind and I totally mess this up -- but then I fix it in the end!)
I had an old 2"x2" board in my garage. I cut a bunch of triangle pieces to use as ramps to roll the dice. I cut 8 per tower. YMMV. You might approach the die roller bit in your own way, so I'm not obsessing about it here.
You will need tools to get the stairwells out. I had to cut, pry and wedge them to get them out without destroying the castle.
On the front side of each stairwell, there's a "window" or "door" for the dice to roll through. It is too high, however, to be able to contain the dice when they emerge from the roller. I'll need to make them bigger. I used a dremel-type saw to make the door larger.
Before
After
The stairwells also have a bunch of windows in them that the dice could roll out. I sacrificed a cardboard box to cover the windows up. I put the shiny side in -- no one will ever see it. I secured it with white glue.
White glue is seriously strong when gluing wood to wood and/or paper. Seriously.
Here are the stairwells with the windows and doors mostly closed.
When you make a dice tower, you have to control where the dice go. The easiest way to control the dice is to just let them go where they go.
What I mean by that is, if you make a tower and the dice roll out the bottom-right side; that's fine. If you look at my previous dice tower post, you'll see that the dice just come out on the bottom. No special constraints were needed. dmscraft.proboards.com/thread/2492/diy-wooden-dice-tower-wip
In this castle, however, the dice need to come out of the door and the door is in the middle of the wall. I needed to build something that would catch all the dice and funnel them through the door. Below you see my solution. It is made of three blocks of wood and some cardboard. My idea is that the cardboard will "curl" and fill the complete space in the tower. (In practice, it does exactly what I wanted. It funnels the dice through the door.
OK. I screwed up. I put in a series of baffles in each tower and then I enclosed the back of each tower with cardboard. I should have taken another picture of the wooden angles/baffles -- but I didn't. Bottom line. The dice fall back and forth and then they get funneled out the door by my gizmo above.
I did screw up. I made BOTH rollers roll out. Not good. I wanted the one on the right to roll back toward me. Sooooo...
I tore it out and amazingly my first dice tower FITS inside the tower! It sits in there just fine. I have to squeeze it in, so it's getting beat up a little bit. On the other hand, it does come out. If I just want to use the tower, it is removable from the castle.
Here it is all painted up. I spraypainted it black then I used a sponge and some black/white mixed acrylic paints to paint the bricks.
I haven't done anything to the interior -- don't know if I will. The rollers work well. Very happy with the results!
Happy Gaming!
I had a 50% off coupon, so I think it was $12. Not bad.
On the right-hand side of each section, you'll see a "stairwell." I'm going to tear those out and replace them with dice towers. One that rolls "out" toward the players and one that rolls "in" toward me. (Spoiler alert: I lose my mind and I totally mess this up -- but then I fix it in the end!)
I had an old 2"x2" board in my garage. I cut a bunch of triangle pieces to use as ramps to roll the dice. I cut 8 per tower. YMMV. You might approach the die roller bit in your own way, so I'm not obsessing about it here.
You will need tools to get the stairwells out. I had to cut, pry and wedge them to get them out without destroying the castle.
On the front side of each stairwell, there's a "window" or "door" for the dice to roll through. It is too high, however, to be able to contain the dice when they emerge from the roller. I'll need to make them bigger. I used a dremel-type saw to make the door larger.
Before
After
The stairwells also have a bunch of windows in them that the dice could roll out. I sacrificed a cardboard box to cover the windows up. I put the shiny side in -- no one will ever see it. I secured it with white glue.
White glue is seriously strong when gluing wood to wood and/or paper. Seriously.
Here are the stairwells with the windows and doors mostly closed.
When you make a dice tower, you have to control where the dice go. The easiest way to control the dice is to just let them go where they go.
What I mean by that is, if you make a tower and the dice roll out the bottom-right side; that's fine. If you look at my previous dice tower post, you'll see that the dice just come out on the bottom. No special constraints were needed. dmscraft.proboards.com/thread/2492/diy-wooden-dice-tower-wip
In this castle, however, the dice need to come out of the door and the door is in the middle of the wall. I needed to build something that would catch all the dice and funnel them through the door. Below you see my solution. It is made of three blocks of wood and some cardboard. My idea is that the cardboard will "curl" and fill the complete space in the tower. (In practice, it does exactly what I wanted. It funnels the dice through the door.
OK. I screwed up. I put in a series of baffles in each tower and then I enclosed the back of each tower with cardboard. I should have taken another picture of the wooden angles/baffles -- but I didn't. Bottom line. The dice fall back and forth and then they get funneled out the door by my gizmo above.
I did screw up. I made BOTH rollers roll out. Not good. I wanted the one on the right to roll back toward me. Sooooo...
I tore it out and amazingly my first dice tower FITS inside the tower! It sits in there just fine. I have to squeeze it in, so it's getting beat up a little bit. On the other hand, it does come out. If I just want to use the tower, it is removable from the castle.
Here it is all painted up. I spraypainted it black then I used a sponge and some black/white mixed acrylic paints to paint the bricks.
I haven't done anything to the interior -- don't know if I will. The rollers work well. Very happy with the results!
Happy Gaming!