How to Make a Real World Mine Craft Cube!

In this instructable you will learn the process for creating a real world mine craft cube.

Tools Needed:
Color Printer
Jointer/Plainer
Table Saw
Compound Sliding Miter Saw
Spray Adhesive
Scissors or Laser Cutter
Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop

I made it at TechShop. Check out TechShop here.

Please check out my other instructable (Coming Soon) for information about how to make the tools picture here.

Step 1: Collect Materials

First, you need to create the texture that you are going to used to cover the blocks.

My blocks are 2.5" cubed. Therefore, each face needs to be 2.5" squared, and a cube has 6 faces. I used roughly a 1/4" bleed when designing my texture. I also included tabs so that all of the edges would be sealed.

Depending on how many blocks you are planning on making, buy wood that is bigger then your final size. I used 4"x4"x12 solid lumber. Any variety of wood will work, so buy whatever you prefer. I used douglas fir.

Build a texture that looks like the one in the picture. The example here is a grass block, you can see that the top of the texture is oriented to that all of the edges wrap. This will give you a nice clean edge on the top of your blocks.

Step 2: Form Your Blocks

To make the block perfectly square, I used a planer/joiner. Join a face, then join an edge, then plain the opposite face to the first face you joined. lastly, you can join the final edge, or you can cut it the last edge with the table saw. Make sure your piece is now 2.5"x2.5"x length.

Now, take your piece of wood and cut it into 2.5" pieces using the compound sliding miter saw.

Note: Wood holds a lot of moisture, and will change shape/size once cut. Depending on your climate, you may want to make your piece slightly larger, let it sit overnight, and then finish forming it the next day, so it can leech some moisture.

Step 3: Cutting Your Paper

I used TechShop's epilogue laser cutter to cut my paper. I was making 2000 blocks. If you are only making one, or a few, using scissor may work for you.

To cut with scissors, simply follow the outline of the piece.

To cut with a laser cutter, make an outline path in illustrator. Stack the paper in the bed of the laser cutter. I did stacks of 10 to move quickly, but prevent fire. Too many pieces of paper will make it very easy for the stack to catch on fire, because it will contain many pockets of air.

Step 4: Attach the Paper

Using spray adhesive, cover the backside of the paper. Lay one face of the block onto the backside of the top face of your paper. Wrap the paper around the block, making sure to tuck the tabs in first.

Let the glue dry overnight.

Viola! You have a minecraft block!

For more info about this project, check out http://realworldminecraft.com/.