Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Another BLD Solve On The First Try

This is good. I was beginning to think I had lost it. Only 1 piece was solved after the scramble. All were solved when I opened my eyes.

L U' B2 L' D R2 U F R U2 F' U2 R U2 L' D' R' F' D2 L2 B' L' D B' L

I am not stressing as much about when to transition from and to M2/D2 and F Perm. I get an idea before starting, but then think about it as I go.

Puzzle Shopping Adventure #1

(The following is an email I sent to Brandy)

I have a story to tell. 6 of the stickers I originally got from Jason were too long. He made them 26 mm like the tall ones of the bottom layer instead of 22 mm like they should be. They are the 6 biggest stickers of the top and bottom faces when the puzzle is cube-shaped and the thinnest layer is the top layer.

While I was applying your stickers as soon as I discovered one that was not right I emailed him. As it turned out I sent him 9 emails that night and he responded to all of them. In other words we had quite a conversation throughout the evening as my work progressed. In the end he apologized and said he would send replacement stickers and give me any set of stickers I wanted. That is how I got the standard color stickers for my black Mirror Blocks Cube. 

I also have the 6 replacement stickers for each of our cubes. I just stickered my bright yellow cube with the original stickers. I left off the 6 replacement stickers so it will be easier to tell where Josiah's go. But really, it isn't hard to tell.

So how is it that I was able to give you a completely stickered cube on time for the party? I hand cut the stickers that were too long with an exacto knife then rounded the corners with scissors. Did you notice that some of the stickers didn't look quite right?

In the meantime I ordered a new Z cube with colorful carbon fiber stickers from SpeedCubeShop. I paid $5 extra for them to do a "Professional Setup Service" on it so it would be smooth and quiet out of the box. But it wasn't. Evidently they did not do the setup, or they did not do it correctly, because three of the six springs were way noisy. So I contacted them via email and went back and forth with Cameron about how to make it right. In the end I decided to lube it myself and asked if he would send me a $5 product to make up for their mistake. He said he would. I asked for a Sticker Remover Kit! It hasn't come yet but when it does I will replace the six stickers on Josiah's cube.