As requested I've done a guide for making a dice tower. My original watch tower works fine if I’m using only a few dice. But this new version will be made so that it can accommodate more dice.

Photoshopping will probably be needed for any dice tower. For mine I’m photoshopping the exterior into 2 large sheets, the same with the interior, if you’re going to skin the inside.


I also scaled up and changed the color of the dungeon entrance door from villageworks. It’s sized to fill the gap between the tower’s base pillars. Also for the tower’s bottom ramp I expanded one of the tower floors in 1 direction an additional half inch. If you intend to convert the tower roof into a chute you may want to crop the top and add the metal edge to the cropped top.

You will also need to print the base pillars, all the tower top pieces, and the roof also if you’re using it. If you’re going to skin the interior, print some extra tower floors.

I choose to line the tower walls with foamcore. It may not be needed but my towers will probably take a bit of abuse so I like to reinforce them. If you do use foamcore remember to compensate for its thickness.

If your tower door is part of the wall texture you should cut the opening before you glue on the foamcore. After gluing down the foamcore I applied the interior skins. Which also have to be reduced for the thickness of the foamcore. Since my door is separate I cut the opening now, I used some of the scraps cut from reducing the interior skins to cover the foam edges.

Now to start on the tower top. There are several methods that will work.

1 The standard top will work perfectly well. The 1x2 inch opening is large enough to accommodate a number of dice. The draw back is that the dice have to be dropped exactly there. I’ve found that some people just stop bothering and forgo using the tower.

2 An angled tower top that is open along an entire edge. It’s the least attractive visually but dice dropped anywhere on the top will go through the tower.

3 An angled roof with a narrow opening. This is still easy to use, but its much more complicated to make. Additional sloped sides are need to ensure all dice go through the opening.

I’m going to use the 2nd method this time. To start, I cut out the middle section of the bottom side of the tower top. Tower top does seem to stay in place with no interior section. But if desired you can leave a 5mm edge of the floor section. Change the edge thickness if you use a different thickness foamcore. You will need to apply textures to top side of this 5mm edge. (The picture doesn't show the 5mm edge) Then I assembled the crenellations and their supports normally.

Now to work on the ramps. I’ve found that a 30 degree angle is more than sufficient to make the dice slide. And conviently it is one of the angles predrawn on a lot of cutting mats. Cut a couple 30* wedges from scrap foam. 1.25” long should be big enough for most of them.

At 30* I’ll need a 3x4 inch piece to make the tower top ramp. Glue the floor texture to some foamcore. Then I cut a strip 1 5/8” long and the width of my foamcore from the top and bottom on the right side. If you intend to use the roof cut notches for the support beams in the top and bottom corners on the left side

I also cut the edges of the foamcore at an angle so the textures will be flush to the wall and roof supports. But that’s only for appearances.

Now to work on the base ramp. Take the lengthened floor. Measure the width of your tower exit. Then cut a long strip off the floor that wide. Now fold up 3 sides of the tower, pile some books to hold the walls for you. Now take the 30* brace and use it to get the ramp at the proper angle. Now keep it at that angle slide it until the front edge is touching the base of the tower exit. Mark the length and cut the ramp to size.


Make braces to support it at that angle. They need to extend from the top edge of the ramp to the bottom of the tower. Then cut 2 pieces of foam core as tall as the ramp and as wide as the tower interior wall. Now make a set of braces for both of those pieces. Glue them on and add a piece across the top. These 2 assemblies will go to either side of the ramp.


Now to build the interior ramps. You can do a ramp that crosses the interior room, a beam that pushes dice to either side, or a ramp the only crossed part of the room.

If you put the room length ramp right under the tower drop point it will block the view into the tower. That way you don’t need to skin everything. 1 or 2 internal ramps will do.

Now fold the walls with nothing inside. Put the tower top on and place the tower top ramp in position. Keep it in place, then take some scrap foamcore and go from underneath and when it touches the bottom of the top ramp glue them onto the wall so that the scraps align the top ramp.

Now take the top back off and fold the walls with the book supports. Dry fit to ensure that there is enough space between the ramps so dice wont get stuck. The ramps can be place randomly around the sides.

Now start gluing the ramps in. Don’t do the tower top one yet, but leave it there incase the others get bumped. Start gluing the bottom, then one wall then the other. Finally put glue on the last edges fold over the last wall and connect the wall tab. I like to use clamps while it dries.

When its dry place the top back on. Go ahead and glue the top ramp to the supports that were glued in earlier. If it’s not on, glue on the door and then glue on the base pillars.





Straight Drop Tower Roof Chute

To create a roof chute you need to cut off the roof peak about half way up. For a better look you can photoshop a metal edge along the cutoff portion. You may also want to create textured walls for the chute. The walls are the width of the cut portion of the roof peak and will be shorter than the length between the cutoff portion and the black line where the roof is reverse folded.

Go ahead and assemble the chute walls, with the textures on the interior. Also assemble the roof peak. Mount the roof base on foamcore. Then cut the chute opening in the center of the roof base. Its easy to center if on the back side you draw diagonal line through the corners of the base to create an x. Then either trace the chute with its corners lined up on the lines. Or measure the sides of the chute and draw the lines on the roof base.

Attach the chute to the roof peak.

Then slide the chute through the opening in the base. Glue the base to the roof peak. Then cut off the chute flush with the base and glue the sides onto the base.

Attach the roof supports and you're done.





Dice tray

You may also want to make a tray to catch the dice as they exit the tower. I did a quick one using the dungeon entrance texture from villageworks. I scaled up the roof to make it the same width as the tower, and used it as the tray bottom. Then I scaled up the side walls and used the bottom portion to create low walls around the tray bottom. The tray only has 3 sides and doesn't need to be glued to the tower.



edit: revised and expanded the instructions for tower roof.

altered tower top instructions

Great guide. Thanks for going though all that effort for us "kit bashing impaired" who still want a nice dice tower.


P.S. Sticky please?!

Excellent, I'll get started on mine soon!

This dice tower will work. But do to the nature of the watch tower's original design its less effective.

It would work much better were you to move the front base pillars closer to the edge and put in a much larger door. Like the portcullis Morval used or the gates from CWC.

Barring that you may consider leaving the door off. If the doors are even partially closed they will catch the dice and slow them down. If the dice don't come out fast enough to clear the doors they'll keep the other dice in the tower.

A different refinement I'm considering is raising the hieght of the tower. Esentially I'd make a 2 square high hill and have a slope in front of the door. Which will be perfectly effective. But it will look somewhat odd since the slope would have to pass between the base support pillars which would have to be on level ground.

Very cool, glad to see I'm not the only one to toss up instructions, nice to see I'm not the only one to use lego for squaring either lol .

I do occasionally use them for squaring. But here I was just using them to brace the walls rather than getting more books. Actually I've used them several times when playing with the dice towers.

For my CWC one they were actually exactly the right size to hold the 3 walls folded. That was really helpful when I was trying to work out how to do the ramps.

I also used them for my 1st watch tower. I'd forgotten to cut the door opening but I'd already attached the base pillars. So I built up a block of legos to go between the pillars so that I could lay it flat on the table. Then made a 2nd block of them to put inside the tower so that the room stayed square and it also gave me a hard surface to cut the door on.

Nice kitbashing guide! Well done.

I did a new roof chute for this tower version. This chute has a much larger opening and drops straight down. I've done a set of instructions or creating this version of the roof, and added them to my original guide.

Let me know what you think.

WOW...just...WOW

Thanks for doing the write-up on this.

WOW

Awesome tutorial. I wish I had done the same, but I'm not good at finishing things off

I've got a rather interesting way of building the insides of the tower that you might like. I'll try and work up some info tonight. I had posted stuff on pwerworlds, but its gone.

It actually makes an incredibly strong dice tower and is fairly easy to build I think once you have a plan printed out.

morval

Request for Clarification:

I've done the Crenelations and drop shoot per your guide. I haven't started on the walls & ramps yet, but will in the next few days. I imagine it might become more clear as I get to that point, but since we've cut off the flooring of the crenelations level, what's keeping it from sliding down the tower? Do you glue the crenelation supports onto the tower walls?

Since this is a perminate dice tower build the crenalation supports can absolutely be glued to the tower sides. This shouldn't be done until after the exterior walls have been sealed shut.

But honestly this issue never occured to me. I wrote the instructions exactly as I did mine. As I was building it. So I tested what I wrote. For me the tower top stayed right in the correct place even without the floor section. But that might just have been luck.

So I'm going to edit the instructions to leave a 5mm, (or other foamcore thickness), edge of the floor section.

Thanks for catching this.

FWIW, I'm now to the point where I can test-fit the crenelations and they firmly hold in without glue. That said, I think I still will glue them permanently to the tower top for stability. It's coming out great, thanks again for doing this. I'll post pics of the final when done.

I've uploaded some of my pics to an online gallery. So I was able to fix the image links in the instructions.