Direction-specific centers - conversion ideas

[Kabuthunk]

So I've been wanting a Rubik's Cube with a direction-specific center square for a while now, pretty much for the added challenge. Although I could technically buy one online, it's just a thousand times easier and cheaper to do it yourself.

So since I generally carry a keychain cube with me (minus the chain... but it fits in my pocket infinitely better than a full-size cube) for when I'm about, I figured I'd convert one of those. Given two sticker corners are already missing because of where the chain was, I'd simply extend the same type of gaps into every other sticker.

Here's an EXTREMELY rough idea of what I've got in my mind:

Has anyone else converted a cube into direction-specific centers? I'm curious as to what other designs/methods have been used, and possibly what they look like. Given there's no replacement sticker set for the keychain cubes, I'm a bit hesitant to start slicing away at the stickers.

I suppose worst case scenario, I could replace the stickers with regular replacement cube stickers, but cut down... but that'd take forever, and likely the cuts wouldn't be completely straight and end up looking weird.


But yeah, looking for design ideas for modifying the stickers, or feedback on this design. The opposite side of the cube would be pretty much identical.

 

[Edward]

Slice away my friend, and good luck.

 

[Kabuthunk]

SWEET! You actually CAN get replacement stickers. Always a good option to have in my back pocket if things go from bad to worse.

 

[Feryll]

You seem like an extremely DIY kind of guy. I would be far too lazy to cut every tiny sticker. Let alone cut 54 individual stickers small enough. I barely have the sheer concentration to apply a new set of stickers. But maybe that's because I'm a perfectionist, which isn't an easy thing with uneasy fingers.

 

[Forte]

I think the two most common methods now are either to:
- put arrows on the stickers
- make each sticker have a border with colours, each colour on the side of the square that is closest to the side with that colour (like this)

 

[Kabuthunk]

You seem like an extremely DIY kind of guy. I would be far too lazy to cut every tiny sticker. Let alone cut 54 individual stickers small enough. I barely have the sheer concentration to apply a new set of stickers. But maybe that's because I'm a perfectionist, which isn't an easy thing with uneasy fingers.

Yeah, I tend to be really DIY for most things. But if I can spend over 200 hours hand making a chainmail shirt, I can spend a few hours trimming down stickers .

I think the two most common methods now are either to:
- put arrows on the stickers
- make each sticker have a border with colours, each colour on the side of the square that is closest to the side with that colour (like this)

Eh, arrows I'd probably not use, just because... I dunno, to me, just drawing on arrows seems like a half-assed, half-hearted way of doing it. As well, I imagine the pen would rub off relatively quickly... or at the bare minimum over a period of time.

As for different borders, I've already done something like that with what was coincidentally my very first original Rubik's Cube (also a keychain version, from probably a decade or more ago, which lost its stickers over time):

The squares (not yet completed... going to touch up the white cross-section of the stickers along the edges) are floor tiles from the NES game 'Metroid'. However, I don't really want to use this as my main 'carry-around' cube, pretty much because I don't want to lose my original cube, and the stickers are... well... just paper stickers with clear packaging tape laminating it until I can come up with something better. Using that constantly is just asking for the stickers to tear the paper off after it gets moist from oils from your skin or whatever.



Thus, wanting to make 'permanent' changes to actual stickers.

 

[musicninja17]

is that a DIY edge?

 

[Kabuthunk]

Yeah. One of my cats ate one of my edge pieces when I had taken it apart to clean it from the decade of being lost. So in absolute refusal to give up on my first cube, I carved a new edge out of wood