I might be dating myself here, but as a kid I loved treats with a hidden surprise. I always chased down the ice cream man to get a Screwball Cone. At the very bottom was a little worthless gumball, but that bonus treat was the “cherry on top” that made me feel like I was getting twice the fun for my dollar.
This might give a little insight why liquid core dice tickle my fancy.
Let me explain.
Pop stars that record country music. Girls who build stuff and fix cars. Skeptics that love ghost hunters. I love the added little twist that make you stop and reassess the things you might otherwise take for granted. I happily admit that I am the dice goblin side of Awesome Dice. My daughter is the DM of a small group. She knows, loves, and studies the story lines, monsters, combat encounters and rules.
I love the shiny rocks.
My son, now an adult, and I have a term of endearment for our affliction. We call it “the inner raccoon.” I think it comes from the life changing fiction by the author Wilson Rawls who wrote “Where the Red Fern Grows.” It was read to me by my favorite grade schoolteacher when I was developing a love of narrative. In the story, a father tells his son that you can catch a raccoon by baiting a trap with shiny things that the raccoon will refuse to leave behind because they desire to hold on to the beloved trinket will override the raccoon’s self-preservation instinct. I think almost any collector knows the feeling. Beautiful, interesting, attractive things are just damn fun to collect.
I judge dice by the way they make me feel. The colors, the sparkle and the sound. Some of the dice make like bells and the jingle of car keys.
Listen here to the Thunder of Dragons metal dice set as they roll if you want to know what I mean.
I would love to know the visionary that decided a set of dice needed a fantastic, amped up surprise inside. If you don’t know how liquid core dice are made, you’re going to love this.
Most dice makers are artists, on this I hope we can agree. But liquid dice give me that two-for-one satisfaction I know my inner raccoon craves. These are created by artist-engineers. The liquid core dice are works of art that encompass a little inner treat of contrast. A liquid suspended inside a solid. A sphere inside a polyhedron. A gumball inside the ice cream.
The Incendiary Dicicle of Liberty Liquid-Core Dice Set
Watching the process is part science, part magic. As all dice are created, there is a bit of chance that the process doesn’t work perfectly, but luckily for us goblins, it’s been perfected. What you might not know is it’s straightforward and much like another craft project we have seen elsewhere.
If you’ve ever created a custom Christmas bulb—you’re halfway there. I used to make them with the kids. We would buy bulk clear glass Christmas bulb and pour paint and glitter down through the slender necks. We would swirl them around, so the paint covered all the glass, maybe add some stickers and voila—grandpa had a new addition to his collection of one-of-a-kind gifts.
Liquid core dice are created in a similar way. Imagine the tiniest hollow Christmas bulb with a hole.
That little sphere is filled with the magic potion of the creator’s choice. I’ve watched dozens of unique approaches, but it largely consists of water, glycerin and mica powder. If you are really a purist, and want super clear, glittering swirls, you might consider washing your mica power to remove any impurities.
To step away from the Christmas bulb analogy, another approach I particularly appreciate is making a hollow sphere entirely from resin. I love this approach because it can result in a completely seamless interior without any obvious signs of how the liquid is suspended. It just seems a little more magic! The resin sphere is created from two halves of a mold, seamed together with more resin, filled with the liquid through a super tiny hole drilled after the two halves are joined. Plugging that tiny drilled hole results in an entirely resin creation, and the later dice pour will seamlessly fuse with the outer surfaces of the liquid filled sphere for that perfect, flawless suspension.
If you’re curious why I prefer it, here’s a close up shot of what the Christmas bulb style design looks like, and I think you can see the slightly noticeable hole.
And just like that, you’re ready to create your dice using your dice mold of choice. I prefer the look of the sharp edge dice, again because I think it’s such a wonderful contrast between the clean, sharp edges if the dice with the swirling, flowing center.
The real trick for us, because we only want to give our community the best dice, if creating a set with the sphere perfectly centered as much as possible. There are as many approaches to creating dice molds as there are YouTube® channels, but I think it’s safe to say the molding these dice works better with the types of molds that allow you to position the spheres from the top easily. We can do another whole blog on dice molds. At this time though, I’d like to answer a few questions I first asked when we started carrying these dice:
Is there anything different about how I use liquid core dice compared to other dice?
The most obvious is temperature. If you’re like me and have ever left a case of Lacroix in your car overnight in Michigan in February, you know liquids expand and burst in the freezing cold. So – yeah – don’t do that. Don’t let them freeze.
How do I care for the dice to keep them in the best condition?
Keeping the dice in a cushioned tin or rolled up in a soft cloth is best. Roll them on a dice tray and not hard surfaces if possible. Resin is tough, but these guys are so cool, you never want to scratch them.
Are the dice balanced or does a liquid core die roll differently?
This is a question we tested thoroughly. At first, we tested them with your traditional rolling by themselves and secondly, alongside another set of solid resin sharp-edged dice. They performed fine over hundreds of rolls. Yes, we have a little time on our hands here in the summer.
Then we tried to float them in a saltwater solution to test the float of the dice. To our surprise, the liquid core didn’t float in our test.
We weighed them and the liquid core did come in a little heavier, but not shockingly so. Here is our very scientific set up:
The sharp-edged on the left weighs 7.38 grams and the liquid core weighs 7.84 grams.
I’m no scientist but I was surprised they didn’t float, since the other set easily did. Let us know if you have a theory.
How do I manipulate my friends and family members into buying me these babies for my birthday?
It’s quite simple you see. All you have to do is use gentle repeated subliminal messages on a daily basis. Ask them meaningless questions like “Is the core of the earth really liquid? Or is that a myth?” Or maybe “Man, it sure is liquidy out there today, ain’t that just the core of our problem?” Follow with several winks and nudges.
Personally, I prefer the sly and mysterious “Don’t we all have liquid cores inside us after all?” Which is totally true if you’ve greatly misunderstood your anatomy classes. Anything is possible if you squint hard enough at your textbooks.
Anyhoo, the last and final thing to do is slip this link here.
Into their cereal without being noticed. A fool proof plan I must say.
Cheerio and happy manipulating!
