Sir Sidney McSprocket’s been in action capturing facts – all about manufacturing!

Today he’s finding out all about dice!

The first step of many any dice is to choose the material…

Now although you can get dice in all sorts of materials – from fluffy fabric to wood – the sort we use for board games are made of a tough plastic.

The material used is frequently an epoxy or acrylic. That’s because it’s easy to mould and be coloured but hard enough to withstand a lot of rolling.

Granules of the tough plastic are mixed with colour granules – and the whole lot is melted, often over a long screw which turns inside a cylinder – this keeps the mix moving.

The molten plastic is injected into tiny moulds – hollow presses the size and shape of the dice. The moulds even include the dips for the dots on each side.

Now, whilst the dice may be one colour, the dots will need to be a different colour, say white so you can see the number easily.

The white paint is painted over the whole dice which are then are tumbled in a machine with an abrasive – so only the paint remaining is inside the dips for the dots!

After a good polish the dice will be thoroughly tested to make sure they are correctly weighted and that each side is equal – else you might find it hard to roll that six you need!