Project Idea - Dice Tower

[Jon Rista]

This got a little complicated because my tower is just a touch out of round. That's probably due to the fact that it was pretty wet when I turned it. The result is that I had to burn the horizontal lines a bit deeper to get depth on the shallow side.

I don't trust myself with a Dremel, unless I build a jig as you mentioned. My original plan was to burn the vertical lines with a woodburner. Now I don't know if that will look bad because the vertical lines won't have the depth of the horizontal lines. I'll experiment.

I was not thinking freehand, I was thinking having it all jigged up so you could do it very precisely. I have been wanting to build some kind of jig like this myself, but haven't quite figured out the details (granted, I put the project on hold months ago). Something to hold the dremel, and some way to slide the dremel in a strait line in a particular direction. Ideally, I was thinking of using some gears, pulleys, etc. to make sure I could get steady movement, not sure if it would be required. Then I was going to use some of those really fine pointed bits to carve fine details. Simple details, strait lines and the like.

Now, I guess your tower has an angled surface...so if you did put together some kind of jig, you would need to account for that angle and make sure that advancing the dremel was in that plane... Its probably a far more complicated problem than I think it is, TBPH.

 

[Bob Hall]

That’s looking great so far.

 

[Russell Nugent]

If it's something you're going to pursue making more of, a v gouge would be prefect for those vertical lines.

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

Notched the verticals with a chisel. Will clean them up a bit.

Drilling holes for the door was not exactly scary, but it was a little intense. Now I'm off to find the bits for my die grinder. In order to do that I have to clean the garage. 😡

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

I laser burned this image as a pattern to follow, more or less. I forgot to turn the burning depth down so it's a bit hot. I'll work around it.

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

Found my grinding tools.

 

[Kent Reisdorph]

I started on the base. I have cut a piece from the same log as the tower. I roughed it in and have started microwave drying it. This may be an exercise in futility because it's so wet. Pretty nice piece of quarter sawn walnut, though.

 

[Bob Hall]

Coming along nicely.

Bob

 

[John Kananis]

I agree with Bob, looking good.