Fold-Up Wooden Dice Tower (From a Wine Crate)

A dice tower is used in game playing to ensure each player’s roll is done fairly and randomly. The dice usually exit the dice tower onto a felt covered landing platform. There are many examples of DIY dice towers on line that can be built with varying degrees of difficulty. Most require the tower and platform to be built from scratch. My idea was to take an existing wooden box that is about the right size and with a little modification, turn it into a nice self-contained dice tower.

A single bottle wine crate provided the perfect wooden box to start with. The wine crate is usually made with simple construction and has burned in labels and designs that will finish up nicely with a coat of varnish.

1. The wooden wine box itself
2. Thin Plexiglas
3. Small screws
4. Small piece of pine
5. Small nails (air brad gun)
6. Self-adhesive felt
7. Small clasp
8. Small hinges
9. Varnish
10. Various woodworking tools.

Secure a nice wooden wine crate. I found one on E-Bay for a relatively low cost. The one I purchased measures 4 inches wide by 3 7/8 inches tall and 13 ¼ inches long. It is made from yellow pine and the sides are about 3/8 inches thick. It was very strong and sturdy.

The first step was to remove the existing hardware. For this crate I had to remove two hinges and the locking clasp. They were not screwed in, but were punched in somehow (sharp protrusions in the wood like nails). I used a screwdriver and a knife to carefully pry them off. Now we have the lid and the main box separated. In the following steps we will be working with the main box so just put the lid to the side for now.

I will be using the wine box as a dice tower in the upright or tall orientation. I need to cut one side off the box that is at the top. This will be where the dice can be dropped down the finished tower. I did this very carefully on my band saw following the edge of the dovetails. Put the cut piece to the side for now.

The dice tumblers will be strategically placed inside the wine box. I cut the tumblers from pine at approximately the same thickness as the box. I cut one end of the tumblers at a 30-degree angle to be mounted inside the box. The inside width dimension of the box is about 3 ¼ inches so I made the length of the tumblers 2 ¼ inches so the dice would have enough room to fall through. The width of the tumblers were cut to match the inside depth of the wine box (2 ½ inches). I placed the tumblers on the left side at the 2 inch and 7-inch mark from the top. I placed the right tumbler halfway in between at the 4 ½ inch mark from the top. I used wood glue to keep them in place. Once the glue dried, I followed up with small brad nails to ensure they were permanently secured in place.

Now, take the wine crate lid that you set aside and orientate it to the wine box. (The “bottom” of the lid is opposite the “top” that was cut off on the wine box). This “bottom” of the lid is now cut off on the band saw following the dovetail line as before. Now take this “bottom” and glue it to the bottom of the wine box. This will allow the lid to be hinged and closed correctly for storage. You may want to use small clamps to hold this in place until the glue dries.

The last wooden piece to add is the bottom ramp. I can’t tell you what angle I used; I just glued a cut piece at an angle I thought would work. It is probably mounted at approximately a 30-degree angle also. I don’t think the exact angle is important as long as it has a decent slope to the landing area. One important point to remember, the bottom of the ramp should be on the same level as the lid when it is flat and serving as the landing platform. You may have to put a spacer piece underneath the front of the ramp to accomplish this. Also, you may notice a slight gap here. Don’t worry; this will be covered when the felt covering is placed at the end.

At this point I would lightly sand and varnish the three separate wood pieces that will make up the dice tower. This is the small top piece, the original box lid that has become the landing platform and the main wooden box that has become the dice tower itself. Lay them all aside to dry.

Next, a piece of clear Plexiglas is cut to cover the front of the dice tower. I used 0.12-inch think Plexiglas that can be found at any hardware store. The Plexiglas was cut to be slightly smaller than the outside width of the box (3 7/8 inches) and 9 inches long to cover the angled wooden dice tumblers. This dimension also left enough room for the dice to be able to exit the bottom ramp onto the landing platform.

A.     The Plexiglas front panel needs to be attached to the wooden box. Small holes are placed at the corners and midway on the long dimension of the Plexiglas. Small black wood screws were used (M2.3*8) to secure the Plexiglas to the front of the dice tower.

B.     Two small black hinges (1” x 0.8”) were used to mount the top to the back of the dice tower. Use the small black screws that come with the hinges.

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C.     Two of the same small black hinges are used to secure the landing platform (former box lid) to the bottom of the dice tower.

D.     At this point all the pieces should fold together to look like the original wooden wine crate. A small black clasp can be used to secure the movable sides in place for easy storage. However, a small hiccup was encountered. Sometimes the best laid plans must be adjusted before the final project can be completed. In this case, I did not take into account the thickness of the Plexiglas that was placed on the front of the dice tower (see photo). This prevented the landing platform from closing completely and being able to match up with the side and top of the dice tower.

The solution I came up with was to take about 3/16” from the landing platform sides (9 inches in length). I did this by unscrewing the landing platform from its hinges and carefully cutting this dimension off on my band saw. After a little sanding and varnishing of the cut edges I screwed the landing platform back on and everything closed as I had first envisioned. Now the clasp could engage and hold all the hinged sides together.

E.      To finish off the landing area, self-adhesive black felt was placed on the lower inclined ramp and landing platform.

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This eliminated a small gap that was present when the landing platform was completely lowered on a flat surface.

Completed self-contained dice tower with articulating top and landing area fabricated from an old wine bottle wooden crate.

Below you can see a short video of the dice tower in action.