I wanted to use small cubes to number objects in a case, but found that they are difficult to come by or are very expensive, so I looked into making some in-house. I found that McMaster-Carr sells clear acrylic cubes, and I have a vinyl cutter, so I didn't think it would be too difficult.
First, I created an illustrator file to place the numbers as a batch, rather than doing individual cubes. I needed 30, so I made a file with two rows of fifteen numbers, as shown. these were then cut in black vinyl.
Then, I made a simple jig to hold the cubes together. The sizes were not quite exact, so it took a little rearranging and shimming to get reasonably even rows: Setup jig.jpg
And then taped the numbers to align with the rows of blocks. Due to variations in size, I only placed a few columns at a time, to help keep things centered: Application.jpg
The finished product. A little off-centered toward the right end, but fixable, and way less money than buying pre-made. ($50 materials/30 minutes labor) Done.jpg-
These are large (1" cubes) due to our audience demographic, but the same principle could be used for 1/2" cubes. Let me know how you have solved this.
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