Saturday 11 July 2015

Build Your Own Dice Tray

Brief detour from the usual painting.

As a keen tabletop gamer, dice rolling features heavily in my current hobby activities. After a while, it gets a little tiring having dice scatter over the table - so a tray to roll them safely in is a requirement. I spotted this article on the excellent Ikea Hacker blog last month, and knew I had to build my own - and deviated only slightly from the original.

Buy the following:

  • IKEA Ribba photo frame. The 9" x 9" frame should be sufficient, unless you play to roll dozens of dice every round.
  • Felt. I bought non-adhesive and just had rolls of double-sided sticky tape, but you can buy self-adhesive felt too - but that's a little more expensive
  • Sticky tape. Only required if you buy the boring felt.

Total cost for the above? £4.50, which is £3.50 for the frame, £1.00 for the felt and tape.

Open up the frame, and remove all the inserts.

Apply the sticky tape to the four edges on one side of the glass, then line up the felt and stick it on. Why use the glass? No chance of accidentally denting it if I drop anything on it, and when the felt inevitably wears out, I'll flip the glass over and do the same on the other side.

Reinsert the inner square, so all the flat pieces will end up at the back now. Now add the glass with the felt, then the other pieces and finally the back panel.

You're done. Five minutes of your time to create a great dice tray. I'll guarantee it's harder to get out of Ikea than it is to build this. Enjoy!