5:30 This warning is important. I have mild asthma. It is usually nothing more than an annoyance, but I did have one serious attack once. It happened when I was sawing a piece of bone to make a knife handle. Always be careful not to inhale the dust when working with bone or exotic woods. Wear a face mask, keep the workpiece damp, and work outside if possible.
Good job, the only thing I would say is that the pips on medieval dice were almost always the dot in a circle type. I found the the easiest way to do this was to use some fine bore brass tube. Drill the initial hole, then use a piece of wire or a broken drill bit and put it in the hole. Slide brass tube over it as a spacer and then a second, larger pice with 'teeth' filed into the end goes over that. The outer tube can be chucked into a drill and the pin in the middle keeps it all located. So long as your tubes are a nice, snug nesting fit, your dots should be bang in the middle of your circles. Trying this on anything less than a 14mm square dice though, is a non-starter.
If you look around, you can get bone, ebony and even mammoth ivory pen turning blanks. You can get them in 5/8 (just under 16mm) square, by 4 or 5 inches long. Enough to make at least 6 x 14mm square dice. They come square, you just need to chop them up and sand them true and drill the pips. Mammoth ivory is horribly expensive, but it's the only legal and ethical way of getting real ivory dice. Bone and ebony pen blanks are very cheap. Also you can get good quality, reasonably clear pine pitch in hard form. It's a kind of translucent amber colour, melts easily, sets hard again and can be mixed with a variety of pigments like charcoal powder and bone dust to make different colours. Perfect for filling the pips. I made some recently because I came across a mammoth ivory pen blank I bought about 12 years ago. I never got round to using it, so decided to make some medieval dice. They turned out beautifully. I nearly passed out when I saw the current price of Mammoth though. I paid $20 for that pen blank, you're looking at $150 now.
I don't know if there's any historical examples of it, but when I made wood dice I burned the pips in with a pyrography tool. Pyrography seems to work well on bone too.
5:30 This warning is important. I have mild asthma. It is usually nothing more than an annoyance, but I did have one serious attack once. It happened when I was sawing a piece of bone to make a knife handle. Always be careful not to inhale the dust when working with bone or exotic woods. Wear a face mask, keep the workpiece damp, and work outside if possible.
Good job, the only thing I would say is that the pips on medieval dice were almost always the dot in a circle type. I found the the easiest way to do this was to use some fine bore brass tube. Drill the initial hole, then use a piece of wire or a broken drill bit and put it in the hole. Slide brass tube over it as a spacer and then a second, larger pice with 'teeth' filed into the end goes over that. The outer tube can be chucked into a drill and the pin in the middle keeps it all located. So long as your tubes are a nice, snug nesting fit, your dots should be bang in the middle of your circles. Trying this on anything less than a 14mm square dice though, is a non-starter.
So happy I found this channel. Thank you for the videos!!
I've managed to make my first dice thanks to your instructions! I enjoyed the proces, looking forward to use them during a reenactment event
You have achieved something spectacular, seriously. Thank you for your effort.
If you look around, you can get bone, ebony and even mammoth ivory pen turning blanks. You can get them in 5/8 (just under 16mm) square, by 4 or 5 inches long. Enough to make at least 6 x 14mm square dice. They come square, you just need to chop them up and sand them true and drill the pips. Mammoth ivory is horribly expensive, but it's the only legal and ethical way of getting real ivory dice. Bone and ebony pen blanks are very cheap. Also you can get good quality, reasonably clear pine pitch in hard form. It's a kind of translucent amber colour, melts easily, sets hard again and can be mixed with a variety of pigments like charcoal powder and bone dust to make different colours. Perfect for filling the pips.
I made some recently because I came across a mammoth ivory pen blank I bought about 12 years ago. I never got round to using it, so decided to make some medieval dice. They turned out beautifully. I nearly passed out when I saw the current price of Mammoth though. I paid $20 for that pen blank, you're looking at $150 now.
The same method with slightly different tools also works for wood! (And to some extent certain stone)
THANK YOU BRO
The dice standard is that opposite sides always equal 7. 6-1 5-2 4-3
For modern d6 dice that's true. Historical dice not always had that.
I don't know if there's any historical examples of it, but when I made wood dice I burned the pips in with a pyrography tool. Pyrography seems to work well on bone too.