Making Dice: Mold Making

How to make dice
Quest 1: Mold Making
Video from Cly Faker on how to make master dice on blender:
• Design Your Own Custom...
Video from Geek Happens on how to make sprue cap molds:
• Cap/Squish Mold with S...
This is an instructional guide on the different types of mold which I have experimented with; I go over the rationale behind each type's design and how to produce both the easiest and most advanced types of mold.
00:00 - Introduction / Mold Function
01:08 - Equipment needed
03:33 - Sprue Molds
05:02 - Sprue Cap Hybrid Molds
06:26 - Walled Molds
07:18 - Producing Molds
Some products are listed below, international users, I suggest you find sellers of these products within your area, not only is this cheaper in the long run, but it also supports local businesses!
Mold Release (Ease Release 200):
www.amazon.com/Mann-Release-T...
Silicon (Mold Star 30):
www.amazon.com/Mold-Star-Sili...
Please check out my other social medias, all under the name desk questers. Please consider subscribing :)
Thanks so much for watching my videos!

[@Manicies]

The walled cap sprue is exactly what i was looking for - I'm definitely gonna use this technique, thank you so much!

[@AwkwardThumbs]

Lots of good advice, very clear explanations of what's going on and what to do. Very nice. One tip: for your sprue molds, consider using those jagged cuts you talked about when removing the master from your mold. Straight cuts can cause more flashing lines since the silicon can jiggle in place more if the jagged cuts can't keep itself stationary.

[@themegas1007]

Thanks for the tutorial! Can't wait to see what Desk Questers releases in the future

[@deskquesters]

I can't wait either! Wonder what'll be next?

[@BiGuyJedi]

@@deskquesters I'm on board, take your time but definitely would like to see more

[@masondecker935]

This was a good video tutorial. Nice explanation and demonstration of the techniques used. 👍

[@csp1776]

This was very helpful for my dice making efforts, thanks Desk Questers!!

[@deskquesters]

Hey joshua Lua! I appreciate the feedback, I hope your dice making goes stellar!

[@BiGuyJedi]

Love the slab mold design, very smart

[@TheDreamergr]

Damn! That's quite good! Thanks for the info!

[@ryanhartnett2559]

Loved the Video, keep up the good work!

[@eu40535]

Very clear and useful! thank you for sharing!

[@lorenzoborja2562]

I haven't even watched the video yet but I can tell that these dice are worth your money!!!

[@deskquesters]

I haven't even read your comment and I know its a banger! Thanks comment guy!

[@jenuinefuntoys]

Very clever with the walled mould. I'm definitely going to give it a go..

[@stevenmcreynolds4970]

If you have a pressure pot, you can put your molds into it and pressurize them if you don’t have a degassing chamber.

[@glennrelos1867]

nice work keep it up! loving the content

[@deskquesters]

Hey that's great! I hope that this informative guide was useful! love, desk questers

[@ignaciocoronel3074]

Awesome tutorial i think your Channel should have more subs

[@JBGecko13yt]

I really want to make the box for the silicone with 3d printing

[@maxineheather924]

Hi! I was curious how many sets of dice you get from one mold before it's too damaged when using mold star 30?

[@anthonyshin6262]

Nice dice

[@deskquesters]

Thank you! I hope you enjoy my other content when it comes out

[@mrjrm0868]

I learn something new when I see this video. Do you have the files available for the masters with sprues?

[@mikeyt8722]

Extremely quality video my guy. I learned some valuable info. Keep up the good work.

[@zalindae]

thank you for taking your time and speaking clearly. This was a great video!

[@TAiiNE]

If I may, not a fan of how you tiered this, as it makes it sound like one style is better than others when theres no real right or wrong way to do molds, everyone has their own style that works for them. From my own experience the downside of sprue molds is the extra clean up needed where the sprue is, plus the defects the dice can have due to how the resin pools where the sprue was, as if its a 'dot' of differing color or density. Plus with how a pressure pot tries to suck everything down into the mold, you also risk getting a larger air bubble sucked down the sprue or collecting at its base as there pressurized and being trapped between the dice and the resin in the sprue. That dot and those voids are why I went for solid cap molds and have never looked back. But if you're okay with the extra clean up, and the little dot you may get from the sprue, than that's alright as well, it just wasn't for me. Sense moving to pure cap molds, I've had almost zero clean up after popping the dice out as the pressure pot sucks the lid down tight onto the resin. The only time I needed clean up was when I first started and over filled or don't set the lid down fully making the flashing, or the resin between the base and the lid too thick and needed to clean up the lip it caused. Plus the only time so far I've gotten voids was when using a mold that was starting to wear out and had formed a rip in one of the edges that allowed a bit of air to slip in. I could still use the mold, and did for a good number of casts after before replacing it, but accepted that it could void on me every once in a while. The voids it gave me where also small and easily fixed with UV resin. There is also a benefit to using single molds vs all in one's. Something I also learned the hard way. The downside of having the all in one molds is if one or more of the dice places starts to wear out, rip or what not, the whole mold is compromise as you can't leave those spots empty as the pressure pot will treat them as they do air in resin, trying to compress it down and deforming everything else, unless you waste more resin to still fill them up or fill it with more silicone. It's why using singles is better in my eyes as if one goes out, you just replace that one. I wasted so many molds due to this before I settled on singles. Had one where the 3rd casting one of the numbers in the d12 ripped off into the dice and it was ugh. That's what started me on just going with singles for all. Also a bit of a tip: You don't need to degas the silicone. Just place that in a pressure pot as well. I found from my own experience again if you degas it you can still get micro bubbles when pouring no matter how careful you are, and though you cant see it, when you use the molds and put them in the pressure pot, it can force the resin into those little holes and come out with ruined product and wasted material. I would get this every so often so I skipped degassing fully and just settled on letting the molds cure in the pressure pot. Never had that issue again.

[@deskquesters]

Hey! Thanks for the reply, I'll try to address the issues as well as my solutions to them in this comment and in future videos. To be frank, my purposes for these molds is the mass production of dice. I wanted to make a mold that avoids excess waste through failed dice that stem from bubbles / voids that can be caused by the mold's design. Resin is expensive and a very durable plastic, so the success rate of each mold is important both financially and environmentally, especially at scale. I tiered them like this because I genuinely believed that my mold making process and designs have improved over time, since they have achieved my goals by making quality dice without bubbles / voids consistently. Like you said, I do not mind the extra time and effort in sanding off the flashing / the sprue, as long as I keep the wastage costs as low as possible. Bubbles forming on the base of your sprue: As long as the reservoir holds enough material, in conjunction with a pressure pot, the uniform bubbles that you introduce during mixing are essentially removed. If you are finding that your sprue is essentially devoid of material and that there is a large bubble present in the base of your sprue, one of two things could have happened. You could have a reservoir that is too small, meaning that there is not enough material to fill the space left by the bubbles as they shrink, or your material has flowed out the sides, meaning that there is essentially no extra material in the first place. If your sprue is still there and a large bubble is still present at its base, this bubble is likely to have been created when you filled the reservoir. There is a 'tunnel' between your reservoir and your dice mold. If you have not completely filled this 'tunnel', then when you fill your reservoir the air in the tunnel is trapped between the material in your reservoir and the material in your dice mold. It can float up, but most of the time it does not, mostly due to it being so large. You can fill your dice mold with extra material such that the surface tension of your material creates a 'dome' above your mold. When you introduce the cap, this 'dome' should have enough material to fill the 'tunnel' between your reservoir and your mold. This stops that large bubble from forming. The dot: Admittedly, with the dot, I have yet to experiment with two color dice that create the differences in color / density necessary to make the dot visible, such as dirty pour dice. So far, the top layer of my dice is uniform with the material that I use to fill the reservoir, so the material that is 'sucked in' is the same color as the surface of my dice. I'll endeavor to experiment further with this and will try to come up with a solution if the problem arises. If you find that your molds are ripping on you, I really suggest the spray that I used for the creation of my molds. Mold release, I have found, greatly increases the life span of your molds, leading to tears less often. You just need to spray on a layer of it each time you put down your material, so far, the quality of my dice have not suffered because of it, and it stops the silicone from bonding to the material as it hardens. Finally, I have been lucky enough to not have bubbles form on the surfaces of my mold, when I put my molds down in a pressure pot, no resin is forced into these bubbles, leading to extra blips that you have to snip / sand off. This, however, unfortunately means that I cannot present a solution for you right now, though I will try to experiment in future videos. Thanks so much for the response! I have much to learn when making videos, so hopefully I can pre-emptively address issues like this outside of the comment section. Though our methods are different, I hope that I at least opened your eyes to my style of mold making. Thanks again, hope I see you in other videos!

[@deskquesters]

Oh, I had just realized that there might have been a misconception about the (A Tier) in my video description, sorry about that! It describes the video itself, how much effort it took to make and how important it is for the viewer. Thanks!

[@TAiiNE]

@@deskquesters Thanks for the reply! Though I think you misunderstood a few parts. I too make molds to mass create dice, as well as other items so I have around two years experience diving into this. I started by buying molds made by others to see if it would even be something I'd like to dive into, and finding that yes, it was, expanded to making my own molds, even investing in my own elegoo resin printer to not only make my own masters, but other items I could sell as is, or make molds out of to mass produse. I also learned from buying molds what I liked and didn't like, and making my own, slowly came up with my cap molds that in total, use just under 10oz of silicone for the mold base, and around 3oz for the lid. The bottom of my molds are shallow, allowing me to push up from the bottom and pop the dice out nice and easy, and the lids don't need to be thick and heavy. I can made two full sets of molds out of those kits you can buy, plus have enough to make a few alt designs, like my crystal and spear d4. The 'dot/void' from sprue's. The reservrar I would make was much like yours, if not a little bigger. But I found (after acually placing a camera and light into the pot to see through a clear mold) that though the reservar was filled, and as you said the resin from the mold pushing up into it then topping it off myself, but even with that as it pressured It would suck the resin down, and if it was a bit thick it would almost 'gasp' air in pulling a bubble of it down into the dice, than the remaining resin would settle sealing it back up. I didn't get this if I put the molds in right off before the resin started to thicken, but some designs do take a bit longer to set up, like petri dish or my galaxy set, so the resin has more time to settle and thicken. That is just the nature of it. The dot, it wasn't just with dice that used more than one color, but any pigment really, as it would settle in the sprew differently than on the dice face. I rarely ever got a dice that didn't have some sigh, rather fait or HEY LOOKIT ME IM A DOT as to where the sprew was. This, plus the voids as said, made me move away and settle for cap molds, and in doing so, removed all the issues I use to have with a sprew. Outside the D12 as said, I've not had any voids with any of the molds sense I went with this cap style just under a year ago. Dice have little to no clean up fresh out of the mold, and can go right to painting the numbers. This is a god send as I do have arthritis thats started affecting my hands this year. Another bonus to the cap molds, as you pointed out as resin is costly, it acually uses less resin as I didn't need to 'fill' anything extra. Just fill the mold until it had a small dome on top, drip some extra onto the lid to cover the number and face, and shimmy the lid into place. To do my whole 7 set plus my chonk d20 is exactly 50ml, and that accounts for any that often gets left behind in the mixing cups as you'll never get 100% of it out. If I used a sprew mold, I'd be looking at 60ml or more to be sure there was enough to fill each one. I may sound a bit biest with this given how I said there's no right or wrong way to make molds, but it is my experience with making molds so I do favor what I came up with. To each their own :P I know people that try cap molds and have nothing but trouble with them. For myself and the way I make them, there like the best thing ever. As for molds ripping.That wasn't just from willy nilly, that was from use. Molds don't last forever, they will in time start to wear out, and tend to allow 30/60+ casts from them, depending on the kind of silicone is used. After so many uses, they can start ripping or wearing out in other ways like with my D12, but even with it I still got some extra uses out of it until I could replace it. I do indeed use that mold release, though spraying it like you do can leave a more mat finish to the dice, unlike the smooth glass like faces they pop out other wise as were how my masters are. I use a paint brush to coat my molds with it instead and I would recommend doing it that way as it helps make sure no spot is left uncovered and you get no roughness from spraying it.

[@deskquesters]

It's awesome to get your experienced take on dice making! There is a load of dice making techniques and theory here that I definitely want to test out and experiment on, check up on it once in a while :). Thanks so much for the input @TAiiNE!

[@TAiiNE]

@@deskquesters I really need to start doing videos myself. I enjoy sharing my methoods and hearing how others do things. Theres always fun stuff to learn! I'm just a stupid shy bean in real life and will ramble or giggle at dumb stuff out of nerves so it makes it a bit hard :P

[@shawnjudd7470]

How do you keep the cap sprue(s) aligned with their respected dice without registration keys? Or, is that not a concern in this style of hybrid mold?

[@DKarkarov]

It isn't a concern because there is no where for it to go. It fits into an existing depression you just have to be sure you lined it up right when you put it down. That said he is also hilariously wrong about there being no way to get bubbles. You can ALWAYS get bubbles, and no, the excess is still "leaking" out, just it is going out the top or the sides of the "walls" not down the sides of the mold. I imagine without a low hardness silicon it is also a pain to demold.

[@jeffreycostello2646]

Few questions. I am trying to make a walled cap mold like you did but failed horribly. Is there anyway you would be kind enough to share where you got the plexiglass box from? Also, would you mind sharing the STL for the sprue?

[@paulghignon4092]

I personally would use cardboard paper (go with something thick, you can also elmer glue a few layers together) glued together with hot glue, you can also reinforce it with popsicle sticks. Just be liberal with the hot glue at the areas where leaks can happen. You can also hot glue some plexiglass together as well, but seems way more expensive than what's needed. I personally don't like doing all of the dice in one mold because when one of them gets messed up, it messes up the whole mold. I recommend getting some pvc pipe and cutting it into two inch segments.

[@marcomoncada5125]

Excelente trabajo.

[@Jeffs40K]

You made a Laser cut acrylic Box, which is quite expensive, but doing it a lot may be worth it, a Easy way to make a Box inside a box LEGOS BRICKS

[@Mr_Spaghetti]

hope you make more videos, this was great

[@JLaxit]

Vouch +1

[@deskquesters]

Amazing! Thanks for the input, Laxati!

[@viktoriaj.5973]

I am starting out just now with dice making and was contemplating the pros and cons of different types of molds. Basically, I generally came up with the same idea that you are showing here, only quite vaguely and not sure how it would work. So thank you for this video, it's really well explained.

[@Tr1pMind]

dont use a plastic cup for your mold. use something like battery packaging. you will waste far less silicone. cup molds are also incredibly hard to cut apart

[@mrsendor2546]

When you want the next appointment 😘😉

[@deskquesters]

The next video will come out in a few days, look forwards to it! Desk, love questers.

[@elifuiavailili5125]

mmm dice

[@deskquesters]

I know! Dice are amazing, enjoy questing out there!

[@jupiterho11ow]

The molds are silicone, not silicon. It would be very difficult to make a mold out of raw silicon, to say the least.

[@shortblackid4650]

gask mask

[@deskquesters]

It's awesome that you are so supportive of protection! Thanks Shortblackid!

[@hippotomba]

Squid game reference?

[@deskquesters]

You know it! Thanks for commenting hippotombruh

[@LordThree]

THis is hundreds of dollars worth of stuff 🙄 I don’t like dice THAT MUCH

[@DKarkarov]

So .... please stop making up fake terms. You have a very basic 1 piece cut mold, and two versions of a two piece mold. Also no, DO NOT make a cut mold in long smooth motions, in fact you want to do irregular jagged cuts unless you want a die with a ton of flashing on it. Who cares about the "master" (another fake invented youtube dice maker term) you can print another one, or even cast a replacement. Lastly sanding the top of the dice in a two piece mold is a glorious waste of your time. You have to sand the cast die to begin with because the sprue is there, so it literally doesn't matter if the surface of the side with the vent is actually perfectly sanded or not. The final product is getting sanded on that side no matter what.

[@roninjotatan]

thank you, what ever is going on with this person they are not an expert.

[@rothery2]

Master is not a "fake invented youtube dice maker term" It's a standard term used by anyone that makes molds of anything. From dice to cast iron pans to engine blocks to anything that is made in a mold. The original piece that is being copied is called the Master. Maybe do a little research and thinking before you respond to a term and make a fool of yourself.

[@DKarkarov]

@@rothery2 Really it isn't? Are you sure? Cause you know I watch all kinds of content, and read a lot of technical stuff on mold making because ... most people making dice molds have no clue what they are doing and are just copying each other. Thing is, I have never seen anyone or anything anywhere ever use that term unless they were a hobbyist dice maker. Even in a old video I saw with Chessex they didn't say it, the youtube channel all about mold making run by a guy who has been in the prototyping business his whole professional career never uses it, the technical documents and tutorials by mold silicon companies never seem to say it either. No just hobbyist at home dice makers on youtube.

[@neonblowfish]

Your molds are made of silicone NOT silicon.