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You can learn how to make resin dice as a tabletop games hobbyist, Dungeons and Dragons player, Magic the Gathering player, or dice collector.
Making your own resin dice is a DIY craft activity that can be a great decoration for your desk or a special gift for a friend.
It gives you an opportunity to make unique designs that other players have not seen before. And you’ll get to enjoy a one-of-a-kind gaming experience. You can customize your dice how you want when you know how to make resin dice and silicone dice molds. It’s even better than buying the expensive premium dice sets.
Read on to find out the step-by-step instructions on how to make resin dice and get your own custom gaming dice.
How to Make Resin Dice with Silicone Dice Molds
1. Make Silicone Dice Molds or Get Resin Dice Molds
What you need to make resin dice is a resin kit and silicone dice molds. You can make your own custom silicone dice molds from scratch with a few supplies like silicone, an old dice set, and hot water.
The process is easy to do with items that are readily available in the average household or hobby shop.
You can learn how to make dice molds with silicone in our step-by-step guide on how to create silicone molds. This isn’t limited to dice – you can create silicone molds for anything following this guide.
As an alternative to creating the dice molds yourself, you can also purchase a large set of premade resin dice molds of many standard dice.
These include DnD dice molds such as polyhedral dice molds. It’s good for when you want many dice options and don’t want to take the time to create each mold.
Having a set of molds will let you focus on the overall design, color, material, and embedded items for your resin dice. Then you can spend less time worrying about the shapes because there are many types of polyhedral dice used in DnD gameplay.
A set of 19 Styles of Polyhedral Game Dice Molds
This set comes with many polyhedral game dice molds to choose from, and accessories like a small paintbrush to customize your dice.
2. Choosing the best resin for dice
There are different types of resins available in the market.
When making resin dice, the thing to consider is the durability of the type of resin for the dice.
That’s because some may crack from drops while others might not hold up well in direct sunlight.
For example, an epoxy resin will last longer than polyurethane as it’ll resist cracking and yellowing.
The reverse is true with polyurethane which also has superior clarity. However, it doesn’t have much resistance against sunlight exposure.
Epoxy Casting Resin Kit for dice
The kit comes with high quality epoxy resin that’s good for making dice, as well as convenient mixing cups and stir sticks.
3. Prepare the resin to pour into the silicone dice molds
When you’re making custom polyhedral resin dice, you can be creative with the desired appearance. This starts when you’re preparing the resin.
To mix the resin, mix the resin and hardener together at a 1:1 ratio. Do follow the ratio and instructions that are recommended on your resin kit.
Add a color agent while mixing if you want to color your DIY resin dice.
Most are easy to use, such as directly mixing in liquid resin pigments or colored mica powders.
You can mix multi-colored beads or colored glitter into the resin. This can be spread throughout the mixture to make a unique look for your resin dice.
Also, you can add small items into each resin die. You’ll insert them in the next step after pouring the resin.
Keep in mind that inserted objects will only be visible if your die is at least partially transparent.
Depending on the coloring agent you used, it’s possible to make a mix of transparent and opaque resin dice with color.
If you decide not to add coloring to your resin dice and only adding inserted objects, the resin dice will be transparent and your inserted items will be visible.
You can use the items above, or any dice-sized personal objects you have around the house to make your dice truly personalized.
4. Pour the resin into your silicone dice mold
Pour the mixed resin into your dice mold.
Make sure to fill the crevices thoroughly, as this could cause air bubbles.
Before letting it cure, you can use a heat gun to help get rid of any bubbles in the resin die casting.
Now is an important time to make sure everything is well settled in the dice mold.
If you have any items you want to insert directly into the dice, carefully do so with the help of toothpicks.
Resins tend to have strong odorous fumes, so make sure you are working in an area with good air ventilation. Open the windows or turn on the ventilation.
5. Let the resin dice cure
Let the resin dice cure for 48-72 hours or refer to the recommended time on your resin kit.
Do not rush the curing process. It is always better to go with the longer time when given a range.
With patience and care you can create beautiful custom dice in just a couple of days.
6. Demold and clean the dice
After allowing ample time for your dice to cure, you are ready to remove them from the silicone mold.
They should come out easily from the silicone molds.
If they are still sticky when you begin to remove them from the mold, they are likely not done curing. Removing them too early can ruin the cast, so patience is important.
Once you have successfully removed the cured dice from the silicone dice molds, you may need to clean them up.
Sometimes there will be extra resin along some edges of your dice. Carefully remove them with a Xacto knife.
Take extra care when doing this because a die that is not perfectly balanced will not roll properly.
After you’ve removed any extra material from the dice, you can use fine-grit sandpaper, followed by a finer grit sandpaper to make your resin dice smooth.
Congratulations! Your resin dice are completed and ready to roll!
In the next section, you’ll find answers to commonly asked questions when it comes to making your own resin game dice.
How do you get air bubbles out of epoxy?
You will want to make resin dice without bubbles so that the dice is balanced and roll properly.
Before you let the resin dice cure, you can use a heat gun to help remove the air bubbles.
Without a heat gun, you can use a hair dryer, too. Although you will notice better performance removing those bubbles with a heat gun.
How do you make resin molds for dice?
You can make resin molds for dice using silicone with our step-by-step guide on how to create silicone molds.
Then, select the dice that you will use as an object to create the mold. This is how you can create copies of the die.
Place one die into the silicone mold. Let the silicone cure and remove the die.
How much does it cost to make your own dice?
For a quick start, you can get a dice mold kit and resin kit.
With a 64 oz resin kit, you can make each dice between 0.5 oz to 2 oz, depending on the size of the dice. This will make each dice cost about $1 per die.
As you can see, the math works out well for dice hoarders.
Also for Dice Hoarders, a Dice Bag with Capacity for 150+ Dice
Now that you know how to make resin dice, you can get creative and start making your own personalized resin dice.
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