DIY Cube --- problems... how to address?

[Jhong253]

Hello everybody,

I have a DIY cube from Rubik's.com. It worked well for me so far, but now I realize there are some problems with it.

I made the cube more loose and used shock oil weight 20 (works better for me than silicon spray) to try to make my cube loose enough for cutting corners and using finger tricks, and here are the problems that I now have.

1. Pieces keep popping out if I don't have the sides lined up perfectly. In other words, I can't do any finger tricks or cut corners because the pieces will pop out.

2. I keep hearing these noises caused by friction whenever I turn the cube. The cube turns really fast, but it still makes these noises -- maybe the friction is still slowing my cube down? Should I sand the cube and do the "break in" to this cube? I'm just worried since my cube is technically, a DIY cube.

If any of you have any advice for me, it would be greatly appreciated!

Before I loosened the cube and lubed with shock oil, I had the cube slightly loosened and lubed with silicon lube from Rubik's.com. Here are my competition times from the cube before I loosened it:

Single: 27 sec
Average of 5: 30 sec

Thanks!

 

[Crzyazn]

"shock oil" just doesn't sound like a good idea to me in the first place.

Cubes are usually quite resilient, but i have no clue how strong that stuff you used is and it's cube killing potential.

 

[Zigosity]

It's just silicone oil. It's probably better for a cube than the spray variety, because it doesn't have the petroleum based stuff the sprays need to.. spray.

Wee.

-Zigosity

 

[rjohnson_8ball]

Hello everybody,
...
2. I keep hearing these noises caused by friction whenever I turn the cube. The cube turns really fast, but it still makes these noises
...
Thanks!

Is it a clicking sound? You probably hear the ends of springs slipping and catching on plastic. My best luck at reducing spring sound was to face the tiny metal washer with its flat side toward the spring, otherwise it might angle the spring outward and catch plastic. (I think that is what goes on, but I am not sure.)

You might remove and inspect each edge and corner piece. I recall there were several spots where plastic "nubs" (due to imperfect molding) needed to be filed off.

A cube core can get weakened by petroleum products and can eventually crack or break. My experience is that petroleum lube becomes viscous over time. CRC Silicone on a cleaned cube lasts longer.

Some cubers claim if you loosen too much, then the cube might jam more (and of course pieces pop easier). I tighten my screws so when I pull a center piece from the core, I see about 1.5 mm. You might get too many pops at 2 or 3 mm, and 1 mm might be a bit tight.

Tell me, how do you attach the center caps on your Rubiks DIY? I found superglue to be a nuisance.

 

[Jhong253]

Yeah I use tiny bits of superglue for the center caps. And I made the centers slightly tighter and that seems to help out a bit, but I still can't do finger tricks and cut corners without popping pieces.

Just to clarify what shock oil is, it's a silicone based oil.