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Leather and Nickel Cube by FAO Scharwz

cwdana

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Feb 8, 2008
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Has anyone heard anything about this cube? It looks cool but comes with a heavy price tag - $100 USD.

I got a gift card for Amazon and am tempted to put it towards this cube. But I didn't want to blow it if it's no good. Risky...

866588_T.jpg
 

cwdana

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Yea. Definitely thinking about it.

I just saw your earlier post about it, Sln.

Wonder if anyone actually got one.

The gift card I have has about $80 on it. So I'd only have to shell out about $30 extra to get it on my doorstep. Ohhh, temptation. It's just the click of a mouse away...
 
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Has anyone heard anything about this cube? It looks cool but comes with a heavy price tag - $100 USD.

I got a gift card for Amazon and am tempted to put it towards this cube. But I didn't want to blow it if it's no good. Risky...

866588_T.jpg

FAO Schwarz dropped the price down to US$19.99 from US$195.00. I just placed my order. NOTE it is only 2 inches wide/long/deep. I hope the quality of the inside mechanism is as good as the outside.
Here is the Leather and Nickel Cube.
 

Zigosity

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Feb 18, 2008
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Has anyone heard anything about this cube? It looks cool but comes with a heavy price tag - $100 USD.

I got a gift card for Amazon and am tempted to put it towards this cube. But I didn't want to blow it if it's no good. Risky...

866588_T.jpg

FAO Schwarz dropped the price down to US$19.99 from US$195.00. I just placed my order. NOTE it is only 2 inches wide/long/deep. I hope the quality of the inside mechanism is as good as the outside.
Here is the Leather and Nickel Cube.

It's pretty cool for only 19.99, but anything over 30$ wouldn't be worth it.

And it says it's 3 inches square on the website, which is actually bigger than a normal cube.
 
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It arrived about 12 hours ago. It is nearly the size of a regular cube. Very heavy, probably as heavy as a 2 litre bottle of Coka Cola. The internal mechanism is HORRIBLE! It is so tight that I cannot determine yet if there are springs inside. As I try to turn any face, it almost always jams up before I can finish a quarter turn. I can feel a hole under the leather on each center. I might open them up to see if I can loosen it up. I have a metal file -- I might consider rounding the edges a bit to avoid the intense jamming. It might be worth the $19.99, maybe, as it looks sort of cool with those materials, but it would have been a rip off at a higher price considering it jams worse than any Rubik's Cube I have ever seen.
 

pcharles93

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Nickel and leather don't exactly scream "speedcube" to me. Even if you were to spray silicone on the perfectly smooth nickel, it wouldn't last long. The silicone wouldn't have any cracks to adhere to and would flake off. After a good cubing session with it, it'd probbably all flake off and cover your pants.
 
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That cube is meant as a collector's item, not to be messed around with. Any cube made of metal won't work well because it doesn't "give" as well as plastic does.


A note was packed with it saying something like, "This is not a speed cube. Sides must be precisely aligned for turning."

This was obvious to me, but not to the extent I experienced. I don't care if it does not cut corners well. I don't care if I have to align it well. But I was not expecting this.

The corners pull inward too much, so when you turn a face, the corners lock into the side cube edges without fail. The only way to complete a turn is to pull all 4 corners of the face outward so they clear the edge cubies. It is not a matter of simply aligning things well. You need to pull corner pieces outward as you turn, otherwise it will always jam up.

I think they might have been worried about the corners being slightly small, causing them to rattle. I think they over-compensated and now the corners are rock tight. The edges actually shift very slightly from the centers, but the corners are very tight. Because the edges give slightly, they might not stay tight against the center piece when a corner piece tries to spin by.

Each of the 8 corners has one interior face open (uncapped). The uncapped face and its inside edges do not affect the jamming.

The nickel cube could be designed to work properly without jamming intensely on every turn. They overlooked the physics involved with jamming. A plastic cube designed the same way would jam just as badly. A simple cure would have been to round off all metal edges/corners. Then the pieces will tend to roll off one another more, rather than jam up. When I have the time, I will open it up and round off the jamming edges/corners.
 
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