Happy New Year!

Let’s hope 2024 is better than 2023, and 2023 was actually a pretty decent year! I had a decent holiday, pretty busy with work, didn’t get much posted with my dice, made a few sets, started a few new things, am working on this website as well.

First off, I’m going to be adding some tutorials in the next couple weeks including:

• Picking a pressure pot for a new dice maker
• Setting up and using a pressure pot for someone who has no idea what they’re doing, like I did when I got mine
• A couple different techniques for making different effects in dice
• Mold making

Sound good?

First, I’ll start off saying I really wanted to put my dice in test tubes, kind of like I do with the potions, which are in small glass tubes with a cork or screw on top. I’ve bought many sizes, and I can’t fit the dice in them. I check dimensions, measure my dice, order them, useless. So Now I have a bunch of plastic and glass test tubes a little bit too small for my normal sized dice, and way too big for my mini dice.

So I started making little jars and accessories to put full sized dice in. It’s made out of resin, can be customized to match a dice set, or premade and bought on it’s own. It’s a little jar, wide and not too tall, not too short, with a cork for the top. I got a mold to try, really liked it and had a lot of success. My friend gave it a 5 star review with “oooooooohhh”, so I’m confident it will go over well.

For now, dice are shipping in small drawstring velvet bags, or small fabric bags in different see through drawstring cloth bags in different colours with gold accents. Mini dice are in glass jars with corks or screw on tops. I’ll be working on some stuff later.

Molds

I now know why molds are so expensive. I’ve picked up the basics for making molds, such as:

• a couple different types of liquid silicone for mold making
• a couple different mold housings
• a bunch of different dice to use as “Masters” as I don’t have a 3D printer so I’m duplicating those, or at least using then to test
• Cricut transfer tape
• double sided tape
• a lot of popsicle sticks and plastic cups
• gloves, gloves,gloves
• Vaseline
• “Keys” or “registers” – more on that

I’m testing different silicone brands, colours, viscosity, and hardness. I’ve got 2 similar mold housing pieces that can be adjusted into different shapes and sizes and clipped together, then taped to the Cricut transfer paper.

There were a lot of leaks on the first attempt.

I tried the first set of dice I received as my “masters”.  I want to see if I can make anything useful before investing in someone to make me masters or invest in supplies to make my own.

I watched tutorials. You need “keys” and “registers”, basically the pieces that slide into each other in the lid and bottom of the mold before you put it in the pressure pot to cure. I grabbed some UV resin, a tiny mold that has little squares and circles, threw some resin in those, a drop of ink, to stand out, and cured them, then used them for my molds. It worked well.

Vaseline is necessary when you do the second silicone pour to make the lid, or else it’ll stick together and trap your dice.

There are some examples of my first attempt (light silicone, no lid) and second (green silicone, lid) which turned out well, but is still curing before I try making dice.

What else?

I’ve got more coming:

• necklaces
• keychains
• pendants
• storage, dice trays, dice boxes
• earrings

That’s about it for today!