New Dayan cubes: Dayan 6! Also Zhanchi minis!

**TanookiTrev** · 08-11-2012

Hknowstore now has the 42mm Zhanchi's in Black

http://www.hknowstore.com/locale/en-...1-0fbc2b116389

**sneaklyfox** · 08-12-2012

I got my mini Zhanchi (50mm) a few days ago and since assembly, lube, and tension, I've been playing with it. Should I make a review?

**Chrisandstuff** · 08-12-2012

Its just another zhanchi just mini. Im sure its not necessary but theres no complaints to having a review (noting if theres any difference in the way the puzzle works because of the smaller size and what not) But it should be fine im thinking the 55mm will be better for OH for me cause the 50 is just way to small for me.

**sneaklyfox** · 08-13-2012

Ok, then I won't bother. Interesting though. I don't have a regular sized Zhanchi to compare it to anyway. At first, I didn't like it that much compared to my Guhong, but then I put in some more lube and retensioned it and broke it in with a couple hundred solves and it got much better. So far it seems just as fast as my Guhong with two hands. Maybe even easier because I don't have to move my fingers as far. I understand why people say the Zhanchi is bumpy though. I like the size for OH too. Easier for my hands except for it not being as smooth as Guhong.

**CarlBrannen** · 08-17-2012

The three Dayan mini DIYs arrived yesterday from Puzzle Addictions (55mm black, 55mm white, and 50mm black, very fast shipment) and I assembled them last night. They were complete but the black 55mm included an extra torpedo. I used 50,000 oil on the screws but otherwise didn't lube them. These are the smoothest cubes I've ever had out of the box. My guhong is smoother but it's had 48 point improvements and thousands of solves. These Zhanchi minis are very nicely designed to run smoothly out of the box.

The morning after trying a hundred solves on the black 55mm, I decided it needed some lubrication. It seemed it had gotten a little fuzzy feeling over night. Or maybe that's the way my hands feel in the morning. Anyway, I put some 50,000 weight oil in it and it didn't seem to have any effect. So I put some more and repeated a couple of times and now it's gummy enough I'm about to take it apart and wash it out. I've got some 1,000 weight oil here at work and I'll try that next.

I didn't notice any frictional differences between the white and black 55mm, but the white cube does seem to be smoother to the fingers so I wouldn't be surprised if more sensitive hands than mine would notice a difference and prefer the white.

Each of the cubes came with two copies of the same colored stickers, red/orange, green/blue, and white/yellow. I prefer black to yellow and so left those stickers off, and painted the yellow stickers on the white cube black with a sharpie. That seemed to work better than I would have thought. I don't like stickers and if I decide to keep one of these as a main cube I'll paint it. When I paint these, I use fingernail paints. I use metallic colors for the orange and blue sides so the four "middle" colors are more distinct on my cubes. That is, they form pairs of darker/lighter and metallic/non metallic. Why someone would want these colors on their fingernails is beyond me.

On July 9th, I used Paypal to buy three QJ minis from Lightake. They say they finally got around to shipping them on August 3rd, but I haven't seen them yet (and it's August 17th). Every time I look at my mail box I expect to see them. I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football held by Lucie.

I took the 55mm black cube apart, wiped off the excess oil with a paper towel, and just did 50 solves with it. I like this cube and am thinking it will be my main cube for now, especially after I paint it. I've got full size hands but shorter fingers and the smaller cube feels better. And so long as a cube is smaller but otherwise identical, it stands to reason that it will be faster because your fingers have shorter distances to move with it. The 50mm black cube is going to be a favorite also, but it's a little too small for me to use it as a regular. I'll be testing this against my usual cube over the next few days and if I change my mind I'll edit this post.

I use a dial caliper to adjust tension by measuring the distance between the top of the screw and the top of the plastic well surrounding it. I couldn't do this to the 50mm Dayan because the screws stick out too far. I adjusted it for the flat part of the screw heads to be flat with the plastic well. On the 55mm, I adjusted the top of the screw heads to be 30 mils = 0.030 inch below the top of the plastic well.