A Gamer\'s Cookie Jar

[fieldarchy]

One night a few weeks ago, when I went over to my friend Mike\'s for our D&D Game I noticed a stack on wooden triangles on his side table. Considering he\'s an engineer and likes making things I didn\'t really think much of it. I thought maybe he was making some wooden coasters or something. Well, I was wrong. He wanted to make a giant wooden d20. That got my wheels turning. I looked at it and said, \"You know, if you made a top that was hinged you could make a d20 cookie jar!\" And thus the project of the d20 Cookie Jar has begun.

Mike has put it together and we want to get the painting community involved in this. We are planning on auctioning it off once it\'s been completed.

I am going to paint the die and cover it in resin in order to make it easy to clean and also ok for temporary food storage or whatever else you may wish to store in this giant die.

We are currently taking suggestions for the theme of the paint job. You have one week to let me know how YOU would like this painted up. Be as creative or as vanilla as you want to be! The deadline is Wednesday August 19th at midnight Central Standard Time.

 

[evil tendencies]

If you wanted to do an international theme, you could use a clasped hand motif.

Each face of the die could have three hands coming from the center, and each hand is clasping a hand from an adjoining face where the two faces join. Paint each wrist wear a different regional outfit, and you have a neat statement about how games create community where other methods fail.

 

[BarstoolProphet]

That is just the coolest thing I have ever seen. Seriously.

(It could be that I need to get out more)

 

[Shadzar]

Stupid idea. Paint it some sort of almond color of other tanish off-white.

One side (the bottom) a bit darker than the rest of the die for the faces and coming up a bit for that slightly burned look.

Paint the number on as melted chocolate chips.

Then not only do you have a d20 \"cookie jar\", but you will have a \"d20 cookie\" jar.

lol

 

[QuietiManes]

Well, I like that idea.

Then again, I like cookies...

 

[airhead]

How inspiring.
The triangles are simple (60 degrees), but what is the edge angle cut at?

looks like 1/2\" or 3/4\" mdf?

What kind of joints? I\'d be using my small biscuit cutter.

If you did it out of sheet polypropylene (starboard) you wouldn\'t have to treat it for food, but you couldn\'t get paint to stick either.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by airhead
If you did it out of sheet polypropylene (starboard) you wouldn\'t have to treat it for food, but you couldn\'t get paint to stick either.

Even if you sanded it? (External area only of course)

Quick look at the angle suggest 22.5 degrees. (Ok I can\'t be bothered doing the math.)

 

[airhead]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach

Originally posted by airhead
If you did it out of sheet polypropylene (starboard) you wouldn\'t have to treat it for food, but you couldn\'t get paint to stick either.

Even if you sanded it? (External area only of course)

Quick look at the angle suggest 22.5 degrees. (Ok I can\'t be bothered doing the math.)

Starboard (polypropylene) come usually in white, but colors are available. The material itself feels kinda oily when you touch it. Uses include: cutting boards, as well as lots of boat parts. The right primer to bite into the plastic might get a grip on it. (Krylon for plastic) and would probably work for a low use item. But the plastic is so slick that hardly anything will stick to it.

Around boats, it is either electronically (ultrasonically) welded or mechanically fastened (screws). Most adhesives won\'t bond.

There are other plastics that would work for a food container, but starboard just popped into my head first....

****

I was guessing 36 degrees on the edges as there are 10 pieces going around the circle. So each side would be 18 degrees off of 90; leaving a 72 degree edge? (now my head hurts) That would work if they were little rectangles stacked around a circle evenly.. .but the tilting of each triangle has me curious.

 

[RuneBrush]

Pretty cool Would quite happily have it on my shelf. Instead of covering it in resin, how about some kind of inner liner/pot? If you made it removable you could easily wash it up, should you put in really messy cookies (or worse still chocolate ones that melt over the inside - you clearly couldn\'t fit you head inside to lick that off).

pete

 

[fieldarchy]

Hey guys,

I have no idea what the measurements are. Moe is the engineer and made the cuts one day while he was bored. It wasn\'t until later that I saw the stack of triangles and we started talking about what it could be. He just wanted to make a big d20 to have it. The idea of the cookie jar was my suggestion. Coating it in Envirotex Lite also won\'t be a big deal. I\'ve used resin enough now. It should take a day to do that.

But we wanted to do something original and get the gaming community involved in it. We have other ideas that will be forthcoming if this does well. We may also see what we can do to continue producing the cookie jars.

Keep coming with the ideas.

 

[PegaZus]

I like Shadzar\'s idea a lot. A D20 Cookie cookie jar would be very amusing.

However, if I were selling them, I\'d do more normal colors (red, blue, purple, black) and just paint it up like a regular die.

A more interesting idea would be to have each side be a small picture of the number and some random D&D beast. I dunno. Maybe each one holding/eating cookies. Actually, that\'d be pretty interesting. A centaur eating a cookie, a gelatinous cube with a Cookie Monster skeleton imbeded, etc.

 

[airhead]

Compartmentize one...
Then I could keep my dice in it.

It looks almost big enough to hold them.

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

As airhead said it looks to be made from MDF. Which means its going to absorb what ever material you want to coat it with like a sponge. Id get a can of shellac and start painting on thin coats. Thin it 50/50 with denatured alcohol. Might take 3-4 coats to seal it. lightly sand between each coat. Then Id paint it.

Nothing you coat it with will make it technically food safe so I wouldn\'t advertise it as a cookie jar to limit any form of liability.

So id skip the resin.. your just going to end up with a royal mess..

But it is a cool box. I think painted like classic D20 dice they would sell great.

I\'m curious how hes machining the parts? if hes using a cnc router then tell him he needs to engrave the numbers.

 

[cyberakuma]

last i checked glass is pretty safe for food stuffs if you fancy doing a rebuild

as for paint job i\'d say getting it looking just like a normal d20 would get more people buying them maybe with the marble effect look a lot of d20\'s have with company logo emblazoned on the \"1\" side instead of a number or just the name \"d20 jar\" or something personally i think a lot of people would buy one if it was mass produced as a novelty dice box sod the cookie jar cookies should never be in a house long enough to warrant a jar to put them in ;p

 

[fieldarchy]

DFD--Jeffy, I\'ve got envirotex lite though and it says it\'s water, heat and chemical resistant. So wouldn\'t that make it safe for food? I\'ve got the pour on stuff which is how I was planning to coat the inside. Obviously it means babysitting it all day but that\'s ok. I\'ve got another resin project that needs babysitting all day too so I was hoping to do both at once.

On their website even it shows that you can coat plates in envirotex lite and doesn\'t mention anything being not food safe. Here\'s
the linky

Now note I said for temporary food storage. Meaning if you were hosting a game and wanted to surprise your friends with a container of cookies, just put them in the giant d20. However I figured most gamers would put dice in there or something.

Since this is not going to have a seal on it I wouldn\'t recommend using it for any type of long term food storage but a novelty dish at a party I don\'t see the harm in that.

As far as painting it Moe and I will be testing out some paints and things. If all else fails Envirotex lite does have directions for mixing in paint for a marble finish. Or I will find some sort of medium that I can paint on and then adhere to the wood.

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

No it means its water heat and chemical resistant.. says nothing about toxins leaching out into foods. If it was food safe, it would say its food safe.
I
If he has some scraps of the wood material id try the resin on it to see how it reacts. MDF absorbs stuff very well.. it can even swell. Also as the resin has a slow cure its going to want to just puddle in the bottom. Id go with coats of shellac..

 

[airhead]

Tung oil is approved for food safe wood treatment

Here\'s a list of food safe wood treatments from Woodcrafters:
http://www.woodcraft.com/Search/Search.aspx?query=food+safe+finish

Here\'s a similar list of food safe wood treatments at wood turners:
http://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/store/Finishing___Food_Safe_Finishes?Args

My guess is you want the salad bowl finish.

(I\'ve never used the Envirotex lite. Is it an epoxy or polyester resin?)

 

[mud duck]

This is too cool, major props to the builder, and to you Meg for the cookie idea. Who doesn\'t like cookies, and gaming? Now someone has to come up with a chips and salsa bowl combo, and we\'re in business:beer::beer:
Maybe bang out a removable metal insert that could be machine washable. That way you could paint the inside something just as fun (inside of a gelatinous cube looking out?) and make the thing easier to clean.

Just my two coppers

 

[fieldarchy]

I just called ETI about Envirotex lite and left a message for the technician. We\'ll find out if it\'s food safe. If it\'s not no biggie, we can find something else to coat it in.

 

[PegaZus]

Originally posted by fieldarchy
I just called ETI about Envirotex lite and left a message for the technician. We\'ll find out if it\'s food safe. If it\'s not no biggie, we can find something else to coat it in.

I was going to point you to the Material Safety Data Sheets that can be found here, but they\'re for the chemicals pre cure. Didn\'t see anything post-cure, so I guess I didn\'t help much. Still, maybe be sure you\'ve read those before the tech calls.