Help making a dice painting template!

[Royce Meritt]

Well, the dice cups turned out really nice. Making the dice is proving to be a problem. I can cut 5 perfect 5/8" cubes with no problem but getting the "spots" on the dice is troublesome.

I made a template and tried drilling shallow recesses and color-filling the spots but got less than satisfactory results. Because the dice are only 5/8" wide there was a problem with tear out if a "spot" was close to an edge. Also, as I used my drilling template the holes got enlarged and gave inconsistant results.

Now I am thinking I need to follow the advice that said to paint the "spots" on. (Sorry, I don't remember who suggested that.)

I'm thinking a "painting template" of some sort. Masking tape, for example. Any ideas as to how to make this "painting template" and get consistant results? I would need some way to put even, consistant holes in something like masking tape (or something else?) and stick it to the face of the dice so I can use paint or a sharpie marker or something to paint the "spots".

Any suggestions? Thanks.

[glenn bradley]

I have a suggestion but it still uses drilling which I think will give you the long term results you are after. A good brad point bit will drill a hole without tearout even if it goes beyond an edge. Getting close to the edge should not be a problem. There are some woods where this would be a challenge even under the best conditions but I don't see you making dice out of them ;-)

Lee Valley's 'lipped' brad point bits do an amazing job in this kind of situation. A DP fence with stops and a selection of setup blocks would eliminate the need for the template. Drilling the all the holes except the two unexposed sides prior to cutting the dice off the blank would help too.

[Lee DeRaud]

For 5/8" dice, the spots are about 3/32", and very shallow. Unless you're using very hard wood, I'd be tempted to use a pin punch instead of a drill to solve the problem of the template getting buggered up. And make the templates with a square recess to hold the die in position and also help support the edges.

You'll need to get calibrated with your hammer, probably one tap on end-grain and two on side-grain.