A Roll of the Dice

How to Make a Castle Dice Tower out of Foam Board

How to Make a Castle Dice Tower out of Foam Board

Three types of dice tower, one wood, one paper, and one legoI’ve always loved dice towers. Yes, I know you can simply roll them the arduous, hard way by dropping them from your hand, but what’s the fun in that!

Over the years, I’ve collected a fancy wooden one and made ones out of paper. When my children were young, I introduced them to D&D and my son Carl the Cleric made a fantastic out one of legos. The click-clack sound it makes is just so satisfying!

Castle dice tower made out of foamA few years ago, I decided I wanted to make a castle-shaped one. I didn’t find a pattern exactly like what I wanted but I did find a generic foam dice tower tutorial online posted by whamodyne on Instructables.

By making a few alterations to this pattern, I was able to make a fun castle dice tower for a couple of bucks.

Materials
  • Sheet of foam board from dollar store (not from craft store)
  • White glue
  • toothpicks
  • 2 sheets of sticky-back felt
  • Craft supplies like scissors, utility knife, and glue gun
Directions

1. Print out the pattern from the link above and review the directions on the Instructables site.

2. Change the front part of the pattern so that it is curved on top.

Front of Dice Tower with Crenellations
3. Cut the pieces out of foam board. Use a utility knife with a fresh blade.

4. Peel the paper off of just the outside of the following pieces: Right Side, Left Side, Tower Front, Tower Back, and Tray Front. You have to use cheapo dollar store foam board so that the paper peels off easily.

5. Assemble the dice tower through Step 4 of the Instructables tutorial. Make sure you leave the exposed foam sides of the outside pieces on the outside of the tower.

6. Paint the inside of the tower dark gray with acrylic paint. It is much easier to paint the inside at this stage. I learned this the hard way.

7. Continue to assemble it through Step 6. Skip adding the felt and glue on the Tray Front as in Step 7.

8. Get out a pencil and ruler. Mark the brick marks all the way around the arched opening.

9. Using your knife, lightly score brick marks all the way around the outside of the tower. (See the tutorial Building a Great Big Beautiful Wall for information on scoring and then etching brick marks on foam board.) Make sure the grout lines line up all the way around. Make sure to have an odd number of bricks on the top row of bricks so you can make it crenelated by cutting out half of them as shown in the picture.

Unpainted castle tower
10. After you have used your pencil to smooth the grout lines and curve the edges of the bricks, it is ready to be painted. Before you can paint it, you want to prime it with a coat of a watered-down white glue to give it strength. You want it to be sturdy since you will be flinging dice at it.
Unpainted dice tower
11. Let it dry thoroughly, and paint it with acrylic craft paints. I used the same techniques as used in the story I See a White Wall and I Want to Paint it Gray.

12. Finish with a coat of varnish for added protection.

13. Add felt on the inside as shown in the Instructable tutorial.

14. To dress it up, I decided to add a piece of felt on the bottom too. It makes it look more finished and hides any errant paint marks.

Felt added to bottom of dice tower
13. As one special accent, I wanted to add an accent right in the front. I have a collection of metal embellishments that I’ve collected over the years at thrift stores and hobby shops. I glued an appropriate one to the front of the tower with hot glue.
Metal Embellishment

I’ve gotten several compliments on my dice tower over the years. I rarely tell them it only took a couple of hours and $2 to make.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comment field below.

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