Allan Espinosa

What to do with a broken Rubik's Cube: make a fused cube

2007 August 27

This is a relatively overdue post. I will use this to introduce myself in the Philippine Cubers Association (PCA) forum.

I bought a Rubik’s Cube a few months ago from national bookstore. It was too late when I found a factory defect. The center face cube was broken and is not attached firmly into the kernel (the internal piece that makes the cube work). Gluing it was not an option since it will immobilize a face on the cube. Thinking on the constraints made me think of an idea: a fused cube!

There are already a lot of fused versions of the Rubik’s cube. A simple Google search will gives you Rubik’s Fusion, Rubik’s Fusion+, Siamese Cubes. Some of these “cube mods” are actually available online. I also found DIY sites on how to make them. And the easiest to build was called a “Fused Cube” in TwistyPuzzles.com.

Constructing the cube was fairly simple. As seen in Ton’s Puzzle Building Corner, One has to first create quarter circle grooves on the 3 center faces of each cube. Here is a picture of the kernel found on his site:

I made the grooves as found in the picture by drilling the initial cuts on the center faces. The final sculpturing for finishing the quarter circle cut was made using a grinder and a file. The image below shows both modded kernels pre-assembled with the other cube pieces.

fused cube internals

Both cubes were attached together using Mighty Bond (superglue). Solving this cube was more challenging and requires more thinking because of you cannot move the center pies. I will make another post regarding my solution for solving this fused cube.

fused cube

Technorati Tags: diy, rubik’s cube, modding, cubing, craft