How to Make Roman Dice

Video Transcript

"Hi, if you're an avid gamer and you want to do something a little bit different why don't you think about making some unusual dice. My name is Dean Hale, and I'm going to teach you how to make roman dice. Now roman dice; what you can do is, and dice in the old days was made out of things like bone, or ivory, or even course stone. What you could do is you could take some bone, some ham bone from the store, or if you're finished the t-bone and you want to take that you could, you could actually use that. Clean it up and get it prepared. Now, what you're going to do is you're going to use something like some shears or some tile snips. Before you do, go ahead and make sure you put on your safety glasses so you don't have any fragments flying into your eye. You then take the snips, and you would cut off a piece about the size that you're you're looking for your die. You would then cut it, have it, break it apart; get it to where, you get it get it in your hand, and then you what you would do is you would take some sandpaper or you would take a file and you would actually file it down. Now, you're not looking for perfectly square edges, cause' back in the day they did not have machinery to do do these things, so you're going to want to make it somewhat shaped like the modern die we have today, but still keep it a little rounded, a little rough. Now, what you could do to put the, your actual number on the dice is you could actually take an awl or a screwdriver, and you could scratch in an indentation into the die to actually make it look authentic. You could actually use a a drill press also if you wanted to to give it a little bit more of a a permanent feel to it. After that, you can just sit there and you can actually put it in the sun; let it age a little bit to give it a a yellowing effect, and then you have your roman dice. I'm Dean Hale. Go roll a bone."