Making your own dice at home is a resin casting project that takes a few hours of active work, a day or two of curing time, and some patience with sanding. The process involves pouring liquid resin into a silicone mold, letting it harden, then finishing the surface until it’s smooth and clear. Whether you’re crafting custom dice for tabletop RPGs or just want a satisfying weekend project, here’s everything you need to get from raw materials to a finished, rollable die.
What You Need to Get Started
The core supplies are two-part epoxy resin, a silicone dice mold, mixing cups, stir sticks, and something to color the resin with (pigment, mica powder, or glitter). You’ll also want disposable gloves, a respirator or well-ventilated workspace, and paper towels for cleanup. A kitchen scale that reads in grams helps you measure resin and hardener precisely, which matters for a proper cure.
For molds, you have two main options: sprue molds and cap molds. Sprue molds have a small funnel opening where you inject resin with a pipette or syringe. They produce clean shapes with minimal finishing, but they limit your creative options because everything has to fit through that tiny opening. Cap molds split into two halves, letting you pour resin directly from your mixing cup. This makes them far better for petri effects, heavy glitter, layered color pours, or anything with chunky inclusions that wouldn’t fit through a sprue. The tradeoff is that cap molds leave a visible seam line you’ll need to sand away.
Standard tabletop dice measure 16mm from face to face on the d6, which is considered the standard size for board and RPG games. Polyhedral dice like d20s in the same set may measure slightly different, but molds are designed to produce dice at this standard scale.
Mixing and Pouring the Resin
Two-part epoxy resin comes as a resin and a hardener that you mix at a specific ratio, usually 1:1 by volume or weight depending on the brand. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions exactly. Undermixing or wrong ratios lead to sticky, partially cured dice that are unusable. Stir slowly and thoroughly for at least two to three minutes, scraping the sides and bottom of your cup.
Once mixed, add your colorants. Mica powder creates a pearlescent shimmer, alcohol inks give translucent color, and opaque pigments produce solid tones. Stir gently here, because aggressive mixing introduces air bubbles. If you’re making layered or swirled effects, you can split the resin into separate cups and color each one differently before pouring them together into the mold.
Pour the resin slowly into each mold cavity. Use a toothpick to guide resin into corners and to pop any surface bubbles you can see. Tap the mold gently on your work surface to help trapped air rise to the top. If you’re using cap molds, slightly overfill each cavity before pressing the cap on, since there’s no reservoir to compensate for shrinkage.
Why a Pressure Pot Matters
Air bubbles are the biggest enemy of clear, professional-looking dice. Even careful pouring and tapping won’t eliminate all of them, especially tiny ones suspended deep in the resin. A pressure pot solves this by compressing the air inside the curing resin into particles so small they become invisible.
Most dice makers cure their resin at 35 to 50 PSI, with 40 to 45 PSI being the most common range. You place your filled molds inside the pot, seal it, and pressurize it with a standard air compressor. The dice stay under pressure for the full cure time, typically 24 to 48 hours depending on your resin. You can technically make dice without a pressure pot, but expect visible bubbles in nearly every cast. If you’re serious about dice making, a pressure pot is the single most impactful upgrade you can buy.
Demolding and Removing Imperfections
Once cured, flex the silicone mold to pop the dice out. You’ll likely see some flashing (thin fins of excess resin along the mold seam) and possibly a small nub where the sprue or overflow was. These need to be removed before polishing.
Start with 400 to 600 grit wet sandpaper to cut away flashing, seam lines, and any obvious bumps. Work wet, keeping the sandpaper and the die damp to prevent clogging and reduce resin dust. Sand evenly across each face to avoid rounding the edges unevenly. Move to 800 to 1000 grit to smooth the scratches left by the coarser paper, then 1500 to 2000 grit to remove haze. Finish this stage with 3000 grit, which prepares the surface for the final polish.
Polishing to a Glass Finish
After working through standard sandpaper grits, the surface will look smooth but not yet glassy. The final polish comes from micro-mesh or Zona polishing papers, which are measured in microns rather than grit numbers. You’ll step through 15, 9, 3, 2.5, and finally 1 micron papers, each one refining the surface further. At 1 micron, you’re polishing at a level finer than most scratches visible to the naked eye.
Take your time at each step. Skipping a grit or rushing through one means the scratches from the previous step carry forward and become much harder to remove later. A final pass with the 1 micron paper or a soft polishing cloth eliminates any remaining residue. Some makers also apply a thin coat of clear resin or a UV-cure top coat for extra protection and shine, though a well-polished die doesn’t strictly need it.
Inking the Numbers
Dice molds have recessed numbers built in, so your cured dice will already have legible engravings. But they’re hard to read without paint filling those grooves. Acrylic paint is the best choice for this step. It adheres well to cured resin, dries quickly, and holds up over hundreds of rolls. Watercolors and oil paints lack the adhesion to stay put.
Use a fine brush or toothpick to press paint into the number recesses. Don’t worry about being neat. Let the paint dry for 15 to 20 minutes, then wipe away the excess from the flat face using a damp cloth or paper towel. The paint stays in the engraved numbers while the raised surface wipes clean. You may need a second coat for full opacity, especially with lighter colors on darker dice.
Testing for Balance and Fairness
A fair die has its weight distributed evenly so no face is more likely to land up than any other. If your resin has air pockets, uneven pigment distribution, or inclusions that shift the center of gravity, certain numbers will come up more often.
The simplest home test uses salt water. Dissolve 6 to 8 tablespoons of salt per cup of warm water, stirring until fully dissolved. Drop your die in. It should float with roughly one-third of its body above the waterline. If it sinks, add more salt. If it bobs too high, add water. Once floating, flick the die gently and let it settle. Spin it several times and watch which number faces up. A balanced die will land on different faces each time. An unbalanced one will consistently rotate its heavier side downward, showing the same number (or the same few numbers) on top repeatedly. Use room temperature water for the test, since hot water can warp some plastics.
This test isn’t laboratory-grade, but it catches significant imbalances. Dice with large visible bubbles, heavy glitter concentrated on one side, or uneven sanding are the most common culprits.
How Factory Dice Are Made Differently
Mass-produced dice use injection molding rather than casting. Acrylic plastic is melted and forced into precision steel molds under high pressure, then cooled and ejected automatically. This process runs continuously and produces thousands of identical dice per day. Each set goes through quality control for defects, dimensional accuracy, and roll balance before packaging. The consistency is hard to match by hand, but handmade resin dice offer something factory dice can’t: custom colors, embedded objects, unique swirl patterns, and the satisfaction of rolling something you built yourself.