I wanted to make my take on a hero vault, something to hold dice, pencil/pen and miniature.

Requirements:

• Pen and miniature shouldn’t shift around when it’s closed, they need to be gently held in place.

• Must be able to accomodate oversized miniatures.

• Must be able to accomodate at least 2 sets of dice.

• Must be made of 1/8" mahogany (more on this in a minute) and have a wolf motif to match the dice tower. [It’s a complementary gift for the same person who has the dice tower]

The cover matches the dice tower. Not super original, but it really works on the mahogany.

The box is layered together and aligned using concealed dowels in the middle layers. The “facing” layers have magnet holes cut into them. The box is asymmetrical, so the top only aligns in one orientation – but I arranged the magnets in opposite polarity out of habit to ensure that it only goes on one way. You’d have to be dense not to know how to put it on, but the magnets will force your hand. The magnets are sanded/scuffed on the bottom so they will adhere to glue in the sockets, and are very slightly thinner than the mahogany, which means they don’t interfere with the closure. The pencil matches really well although it’s not made of mahogany. It’s not included with the gift so it doesn’t matter much, but I thought it was a nice touch.

In this picture you see the inside of the lid is also padded. Notice the different depths of padding, particularly in the lid (on bottom of photo). The miniature (round) and pen sections are both double layers of foam, whereas the dice section is a single layer. This allowed me to customize the fit, ensuring that the miniature and pen are sufficiently padded and are also “trapped” gently by the foam. When closed, the box holds them safely in place, with no rattling. The dice, on the other hand, rattle like you’d expect. (BTW, the design accommodates up to 4 7-sets of dice. It’s tight but they fit.)

The side view shows the layers, which are the achilles heel, and the one thing I’ll do differently if I make one for myself. The first thing is that the middle layers are MDF, which makes them look different from the mahogany. I thought it might look sloppy, but in practice it actually looks intentional.

While I don’t love the edge look of this box, I think that comes down to personal preference. I considered a few treatments; cladding the whole thing in mahogany, sanding and painting the edges, a third option that I won’t go into here (because it’ll probably be the subject of a future post and I’m not getting scooped). In the end, I decided that the edges looked pretty good and that the recipient will be thrilled.

Overall I am happy with it, but I think it’d be only an ok box except for one thing: headliner fabric. That really sets it off and makes it feel very finished. I highly recommend getting some if you want to add a easy, luxurious padded interior to a box – it really does make an impression.