peedu
Regular
Well crap, it just broke
I was about to say how well it was responding to the lube, when half of the pieces just popped out. One of the center caps fell off, screw and all. It wont screw back in. I see marks all over the plastic now. I think the jig-a-loo softened it too much.
Hey!
I ordered both black and white Maru Mini-s from DealExtreme.
One of the screwes of the black one unscrewed in 10 moves. White is OK. Inspecting the black cube I noticed that there was a crack at that end of the core where the screw came loose.
Later in the evening I unscrewed all the centers and tried to figure out if a drop of superglue would fix the core. Trying to widen the crack a bit, a small piece of core came off. Then I also tried the other ends of the core also. 2 more small pieces came off. Decided that I have nothing to lose and glued them back. Then finally the core broke into 2 halves. Both pieces having 2 small tubes with the screw hole and 2 half-tubes. Sort of if you would cut a cube between LF edge, BR edge and diagonally U face from ULF corner to UBR corner and D face from DLF to DBR corner. I glued these pieces also.
Sanded the springs also just to be sure.
After several solves (I'm carrying at least one of the small ones in the pocket all the time) one of the centers came off again. I was able to find all the pieces from the grass. Then I glued that particular screw into the core. It works again. Black one (the broken) is much loose at the moment, White feels better. I think I will tighten the black one a bit.
I have lubed both with silicone stick (not spray). Turtle wax rubber care stick is it called. I'm not even sure if this is appropriate lube for any twisty puzzle.
Moral of the story is: if the Maru mini cube screws just fall off you can check for cracks in the core. Maybe you are able to fix them with just some glue. Sanding the springs is also a good idea. Sometimes you just feel the springs unwinding inside the cube.
Now the question is: The cubes that broke - were they black or white? Could it be that a big box of black Maru Minis was dropped so that the cores broke and the whites are OK?
Peedu
PS: I just tightened the screws on the black cube. Much better.
