Kabuthunk
Regular
Bit of backstory, I like to keep a cube with me to play with when I'm... wherever. But since it isn't winter, I don't have a jacket or other article of clothing with large pockets to comfortably hold a regular Rubik's Cube.
Thus, I ordered a Rubik's Cube keychain to fill that need, but turns out it generally turns pretty poorly. If the seams aren't exactly, perfectly lined up, you can guarantee that the openings in one of the other pieces will catch on the middle square and stop it from rotating. Very irritating. I therefore set out to fix the problem.
My solution... fill in the cubies! Since the compound I was using, JB Weld, isn't cheap, I mostly filled the cubies with cut-off pieces of bamboo meat skewers. This will make it weigh less, and I'll use less JB Weld.
Next up, after filling all the holes (I had a bit extra, so I filled the out-jutting holes too... after all, why let it go to waste) and letting it dry for 24 hours, I shaved all the excess off of the cubies.
And then finally, after removing any rough edges left by the injection-moulding process, I sprayed it all down with a silicone lubricant before reassembling, let it dry, and put it together. You can see the grey inside the cubie from this angle.
Not very visible, and the cube turns like a dream. Not regular-cube quality, but a thousand times better than it originally turned
. It never catches any more, and rotates pretty smooth. Probably about as good as it's possible to convert one of these keychains into, given their lack of spring-based center. More pictures and details at my site over here.
All in all, I'm quite happy with it.
Thus, I ordered a Rubik's Cube keychain to fill that need, but turns out it generally turns pretty poorly. If the seams aren't exactly, perfectly lined up, you can guarantee that the openings in one of the other pieces will catch on the middle square and stop it from rotating. Very irritating. I therefore set out to fix the problem.
My solution... fill in the cubies! Since the compound I was using, JB Weld, isn't cheap, I mostly filled the cubies with cut-off pieces of bamboo meat skewers. This will make it weigh less, and I'll use less JB Weld.
Next up, after filling all the holes (I had a bit extra, so I filled the out-jutting holes too... after all, why let it go to waste) and letting it dry for 24 hours, I shaved all the excess off of the cubies.
And then finally, after removing any rough edges left by the injection-moulding process, I sprayed it all down with a silicone lubricant before reassembling, let it dry, and put it together. You can see the grey inside the cubie from this angle.
Not very visible, and the cube turns like a dream. Not regular-cube quality, but a thousand times better than it originally turned
. It never catches any more, and rotates pretty smooth. Probably about as good as it's possible to convert one of these keychains into, given their lack of spring-based center. More pictures and details at my site over here.All in all, I'm quite happy with it.
