Does this kind of pop ever happen to you?

[Ellis]

ok so I did 20 solves to test and see if the screw was staying in place. It turns out that it seems to be slightly unscrewing itself. Just to make sure I'm not being dumb, the screws should always stay the same relative to the core, right? In other words, if I were to take off all my center caps and line up all the notches of each screw with the edges of the cube, I could come back in in a couple days and see that the screws were still lining up the the edges. This is a true statement? If it is, then a crooked screw is my problem. Would there be anything substantial I could do other than just rubbing a little silicone on the washers?

[CAT13]

Just to make sure I'm not being dumb, the screws should always stay the same relative to the core, right?

If I understand you correctly, I will give you the answer of: If you marked the screw under the white cap as being white, then you would notice that it is always under the white cap, not any other caps.

Which reminds me of the question of if one were to somehow make one side of a 4x4 slightly looser than the rest of the sides (or tighter) and they always made a certain color (say, green) on that loose side, would they ever encounter parity? Or how about two adjacent sides (say green and red) and always made green and red on the loose sides, would they ever encounter parity?

[hawkmp4]

Which reminds me of the question of if one were to somehow make one side of a 4x4 slightly looser than the rest of the sides (or tighter) and they always made a certain color (say, green) on that loose side, would they ever encounter parity? Or how about two adjacent sides (say green and red) and always made green and red on the loose sides, would they ever encounter parity?

But that wouldn't have any effect on whether someone got parity... I'm confused.

[Escher]

try the new type (d) trick - stick some loctite in the hole, screw it in, leave it to set for a bit, and hopefully it'll stick.
just scanned the previous posts so sorry if this has already been said.

[amostay2004]

my previous type a core got stripped as well...the red layer keeps popping off and everything flies everywhere...
i put super glue on the screws and it worked...but i think after too much screwing and unscrewing it started popping again...
but the loctite thing should work...and super glue as well...

[CAT13]

Which reminds me of the question of if one were to somehow make one side of a 4x4 slightly looser than the rest of the sides (or tighter) and they always made a certain color (say, green) on that loose side, would they ever encounter parity? Or how about two adjacent sides (say green and red) and always made green and red on the loose sides, would they ever encounter parity?

But that wouldn't have any effect on whether someone got parity... I'm confused.

I was thinking that only odd cubes can have OLL parity, yes? And only odd cubes can have colors change location relative to the core, yes? So I was kinda mixing the two and wondering what would happen. It would probably make a black hole

[hawkmp4]

Parity depends on the number of inner slice turns in the scramble and reduction. If you have, for example, a scramble with an odd number of inner slice turns, and you reduce it to 3x3 with an even number, you get parity (same for even scramble, odd reduction). If both are odd or both are even, you don't get parity. Where the centers are wouldn't have an effect on that.

[Ellis]

Just to make sure I'm not being dumb, the screws should always stay the same relative to the core, right?

If I understand you correctly, I will give you the answer of: If you marked the screw under the white cap as being white, then you would notice that it is always under the white cap, not any other caps.

Lol, I think thats pretty obvious that a screw isn't going to change position to be under another center cap. What I meant was, take for example if you were to take off the white center cap, and look at the screw as you turn the white face, the screw appears to not turn at all relative to the whole cube (only to the white side) showing that the screw is not moving along with the side.

I guess this is kind of obvious... but should that screw literally NEVER turn in place? The question is kind of silly but I wanted to be certain.

This is exactly what I did: I took off my top face (green) center cap and I turned the screw so that the notches made a cross with the cube and matched up with the edges (if I were to make a green cross on top). I did 20 solves and took off the green center cap to see the position of the screw.. it was not in the same cross arrangement, but was off center, if I had a green cross on top I would have had to misalign the green side from the rest of the cube to have it match up with the screw position.

This means that my screw is literally unscrewing itself, right?

Does that make sense?

[hawkmp4]

Yes, that makes sense, and yes that's what it means. Try the locktite, I've never done it myself but it seems like it'd be relatively safe if it doesn't work.

[Ellis]

Locktite... Is that a brand name... would I get it at a regular hardware store?

I've thoroughly convinced myself that lubing my washers will help a lot too, because it will cut down on the friction between both the plastic and the washers, and the washers and the screws. And the friction is what is causing it to unscrew.

I will probably just end up squirting some super glue in the hole instead of going out and getting locktite, but whichever I choose to do, I think im going to do the same 20 solves after lubing my washers to see how much of a difference that will make.