Lidded Elongated Octagonal Dice Tray

An Etsy customer contacted me to inquire into whether I could make a dice tray with a lid. This is the direction we took it. The elongated octagonal dice tray with a top secured by rare earth magnets set into both the rim of the tray and the top itself.

More pics after the jump.

Elongated Octagonal Dice Tray - Rosewood Stain and Black Felt

Another elongated dice tray out the door. This one got a healthy dose of General Finishes Rosewood Gel Stain and black felt. The finish is Formby's Tung Oil.

For size reference, the long axis is 9 1/4 inches, the short axis is 6 1/4 inches. The gold dice are 12 mm and the blue dice are 19 mm.

Other color combinations are visible on the gallery post. And, of course, they are available for purchase on Etsy.

More pics after the jump:

Octagonal Dice Tray - Black Poisonwood, or Chechen, with Green Felt

This is another dice tray, this time the standard 3" side, 6 1/4" diameter, octagonal dice tray. They're available on Etsy.

This, like the first one I ever made, is made from black poisonwood, which is also known as chechen or Caribbean rosewood, that is finished with Formby Tung Oil and given a kelly green felt lining.

Octagonal Dice Tray - Red Oak with Blue Felt

19 mm dice

This is another dice tray, this time the standard 3" side, 6 1/4" diameter, octagonal dice tray. They're available on Etsy.

This is made from red oak, with Formby Tung Oil and given a blue felt lining.

12 mm dice

Black Stain Elongated Tray with Purple Felt

Another elongated dice tray out the door. This one got a healthy dose of General Finishes Black Gel Stain and purple felt. The finish is Formby's Tung Oil. I, humbly, think it turned out great. The customer had a great eye for combining the dark colors of black and purple.

For size reference, the long axis is 9 1/4 inches, the short axis is 6 1/4 inches. The gold dice are 12 mm and the blue dice are 19 mm.

Other color combinations are visible on the gallery post. And, of course, they are available for purchase on Etsy.

Black Poisonwood Dice Tray with Green Felt

Note the continuing grain pattern

This is another dice tray, this time the standard 3" side, 6 1/4" diameter, octagonal dice tray. They're available on Etsy.

This is made from black poisonwood, which is also known as chechen or Caribbean rosewood, that is finished with Formby Tung Oil and given a dark green felt lining. A gentleman in Germany messaged me to request this, and I was happy to oblige. Working with the exotic woods is a lot of fun. I'm pleased with how this turned out as I was able to make the dice tray from one piece of material, so you can see the grain pattern continuing the entire way around the tray. The picture above shows how the grain follows around the sides of the tray.

19 mm dice

Red Oak Elongated Dice Tray with Red Felt

By this time everyone knows the drill, this is one of the elongated dice trays that I make and are available on Etsy. The short sides are 3" and the long sides are 6". The interior dimensions are aproximately 9 1/4" on the major axis, 6 1/4" on the minor axis.

This is made from red oak that is finished with Formby Tung Oil and given a red felt lining.

A couple more pics after the jump.

Cherry Octagonal Dice Tray

Cherry, royal blue felt, 19 mm dice

This is an octagonal dice tray lined with royal blue felt, I've made this exact combination before, but these pictures turned out better than the last set (at least I think so), so I decided to post them.

Ash Octagonal Dice Tray - Pirate Green Felt

Ash, pirate green felt, 12 mm dice

These are just a few couple pictures to show the ash/pirate green color combo along with another good example of how a continuous grain pattern looks in a different wood.

Small Rectangular Dice Tray - Ash with Cork Lining

Ash, cork, and 12 mm dice

Just wanted to provide photos of another wood and color combo. This time, ash paired with cork lining. As with essentially all of my pictures with dice, the gold dice are 12 mm (1/2") and the blue dice are 19 mm (3/4").

I have a gallery of small rectangular dice trays here,

and

I have them for sale here.

More pics after the jump.

Elongated Octagonal Dice Tray - Maple with Cork Lining

Maple with cork lining

Another dice tray went out, this one maple with a cork lining. Finished with Formby 30063 Tung Oil, 16-Ounce, which is an easy-to-use, fast-drying, wiping varnish. It turned out nicely.

As always, they are available on Etsy.

Elongated Octagon

Octagon (domestic hardwoods)

Octagon (exotic hardwoods)

Small Rectangle

Large Square

Square Dice Tray - Black

Those dice have so much space!

I received another custom order for a dice tray. For this one, the request was 9" x 9" square, wood stained black. The quadrilateral design is closer to the small rectangular tray, but larger, than it is to the octagonal designs. Staining it black, however, was a new wrinkle. Pictures and discussion after the jump.

Small Rectangular Dice Tray Gallery

Like I've done with the octagonal and elongated octagonal dice tray. I wanted to create a central gallery for the color and material combinations that I've made and photographed. 

They are for sale here.

Pics after the jump.

Small Rectangular Dice Tray - Ash with Black Felt

Just wanted to provide photos of another wood and color combo. This time, ash paired with black felt. As with essentially all of my pictures with dice, the gold dice are 12 mm (1/2") and the blue dice are 19 mm (3/4"). 

They are for sale here.

More pics after the jump.

Small Rectangular Dice Tray - Walnut Red Felt

Designing something to be used involves a surprising amount of factors. Typically, nearly everything you use that has been produced by a major corporation has been engineered to death (well, it ought to have been at least). Someone has thought through the ergonomics of how it's used, how its user will react to using it. Someone has thought through all of the minor details of how others will perceive its use. Here's a fun fact about my operation: I have precisely zero engineers. I do all of the design myself, and, spoiler-alert, I'm not an engineer (yes, presses are stopped).

Here's a thing I never considered when designing the original octagonal dice tray or even when designing the elongated octagonal dice tray: a deep tray with high sides can obscure other players' views of your dice rolls. At a small tabletop game, it's not that big of an issue. The sight lines involved don't block the dice rolls. However, at big games, like a big wargaming session or at a con, the larger distances change the sight lines and can mean that rolls are hard for other players to see. Plus, at those games, there's a higher probability that schlepping your gear is an issue, so smaller actually can be better.

Enter the Small Rectangular Dice Tray.

Elongated Octagonal Dice Tray Gallery

Walnut with cocoa brown felt lining

I've created this post simply to have a consolidated gallery of all of the octagonal dice trays that I've made. After the jump are all of the pictures.

My elongated dice trays are available for sale on Etsy.

Octagonal Dice Tray Picture Gallery

Black Poisonwood (Caribbean Rosewood or Chechen) with red felt lining

I've created this post simply to have a consolidated gallery of all of the octagonal dice trays that I've made. After the jump are all of the pictures.

My dice trays can be found for sale on etsy. I have separate listings for the domestic and exotic materials.

Elongated Octagonal Dice Tray 1.1 - Walnut with Various Linings

Wouldn't it be cool if this felt was actually from Champagne?

I received another order for an elongated octagonal dice tray on Etsy. This customer requested it be made of walnut with the champagne felt lining. The story of this version is much the same as the last: two parallel 6" sides go along with six 3" sides to make an elongated octagon that is vaguely oval-shaped. The sides are 3" deep, making a fairly deep dice-rolling-area. Instead of stained red oak, the tray material is walnut, which carries the naturally dark chocolate brown color you see.

Also, in addition to the champagne lining, I ended up cutting lining in cocoa brown felt that I took pictures of without gluing down just to give an example of another color.

Lastly, I experimented with using a cork lining.

More pics after the jump:

Dice Tray 2.01 - Walnut With Black Lining

Honestly, this is just a post of pictures of another dice tray that I made. This is Walnut with black felt. Pics after the jump, but if you want commentary about the actual piece, I'd suggest you look here or here or I guess here.

Elongated Octagonal Dice Tray - v. 1.0

I toyed with calling this an "irregular" octagon. Okay, because I have a lot of respect for my readers, I will concede: Technically this is a "regular" octagon because all of the interior angles are 135 degrees. However, colloquially, it appears "irregular" insofar as it is a polygon that does not approximate a circle, but rather approximates an oval or ellipse. I settled on "elongated" as it adequately describes it. Everyone on board with my pedantry?

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