Whether you’re playing dice games or just love gimmicking your dice, there are lots of ways to load them up.
Drill a hole and load it with a weight
A simple way to gimmick dice is by drilling a small hole in one side and adding a tiny amount of weight. The weight can either be a coin, a piece of jewelry, or any other small item you can find.
Loading the die in this way will give you a die that comes up more often on one end, and less often on the other. This can be used to pull off a variety of tricks, such as dominating craps or pulling off some impressive magic.
Hollowing out the interior of a die
The best way to hollow out the inside of a die is by using a small tool like a dental pick or other poking device. Start from different angles and scrape away at the die’s interior a little bit at a time, trying to make the hole as uniform as possible. Once you’ve made a hole, plug it with a little super glue and let it dry.
Heat and soften the die
The easiest way to soften a die is to place it in a microwave for about 30 seconds. This will heat up the plastic and change its density slightly.
However, this method isn’t perfect and can warp the die. You can also melt it in the oven at a low temperature, but you’ll need to be careful not to overheat the die.
Test your dice with salt water
A common method for testing the balance of dice is to dip them in salt water. This will cause the lower numbers to sink and the higher ones to float, which will show you the distribution of mass in your dice.
While this will work for plastic dice, it won’t be as effective for stone or metal dice. This is because the natural pips on a stone or metal dice change the weight of each face, and it’s difficult to evenly distribute the mass in those types of dice.
Mix waxes
If you want to make a variable-load die, a good way to do this is by mixing some kind of wax in the hole. An ideal mixture is paraffin and coconut oil, both of which are inexpensive and can be found in most stores.
Paint over the weight
Once you’ve drilled a hole into a die, and loaded it with a small weight, it’s important to paint over the top of it to protect it from damage. You can use a brush, a gun-black marker, or a little ink, but make sure you don’t mess up the coloring by painting too close to the edge of the hole.
The most important thing is to make sure your weighted spot matches up with the rest of the dot on the die. This will help keep it from being unbalanced and giving you a random result.