Rubik's Cube Lubrication experiment

There's a lot of dispute on how to lubricate your cube. I think it's time that someone does a rigorous study on the subject. I have purchased 10 do-it-yourself cubes from Cube4u. They are all white Type Ds. Ooh, bubble wrap. Okay, this cube seems to be much tighter than all the others. All the other are basically the same Except for this one. This one is very, very hard to turn, noticeably so. It's very stiff. You can't cut corner at all. This is the lubricant that I'll be using, Jigalube, primarily because I can't find anything else, at least not here in Canada, and this has worked for me until now. Okay, so there are a couple of things that I'm interested in here. First of all, the amount of lube is the most important thing, so I'll be increasing that amount of lube throughout. Second of all, I'm trying to test the method. So is it better to completely disassemble the cube and spray all the pieces, or is it better to just pop out random pieces and spray it in there and put them back? The hypothesis is that it's better to completely disassemble the cube, but I'm wondering by how much it is better, or if there even is a noticeable difference. And lastly, I'll be testing if there is a difference in the amount of time spent working the lube in right after you lube it. So I'll be increasing and decreasing that time and then comparing the results in the end. Okay, so here we go. For number 1, I will pop 2 edges and spray in and work it in for 30 seconds. For number 2, I will pop 4 edges, spray it in there, and then working for 30 seconds. For number 3, I will pop 6 edges, spray it in, and work it in for 30 seconds. For number 4, I will pop 4— I will pop 8 edges, spray it in, and work it in for 30 seconds. For number 5, I will buff 4 edges, spray it in, and then work it in for a long time, 2 minutes. For number 6, I will pop 8 edges straight in and work it in. Now, I'd like to make a note that number 6 is a little stiffer than the other cubes that I have so far lubed up, so we'll see if that may affect the results. Number 7, I will completely disassemble and I will do one full sweep of lube. For number 8, I will do full, full 2 sweeps. For number 9, I will completely disassemble the cube and do 3 full sweeps. I should also mention that Jiggle Lube was reported to melt plastic on cubes. Now, this was proven to be false by many people. So what happens is that when you spray Jiggle Lube on the cube, the cubies temporarily do go a little soft, but just don't dig your nails into it and don't— just don't touch it. It will go back to normal later on. Now what could happen though is if you spray too much Jiggle Loo into your cube, what can happen is that it acts as glue, and when you come back later to, you know, try it out, you're going to see that your cube is like one block of glue. You can't move it. And this can happen if you spray too much Jiggle Loo in there, and it happened for me when, for the one where I had to pop 8 edges and spray Jiggle Loo in there. There was just too much Jiggle Loo, and I'll show you how I what I have to do when this happens. Okay, so number 4, I can't break my hands.

Okay.

I'll be right back.

Okay, so the results.

This is number 1. So I only scraped twice inside this one. Now, it came out, uh, incapable of fast movements and cutting corners quickly. I wouldn't use this. Can't properly cut corners too well, and it locks up often. Often locks up. And the friction is just very, very uneven. For number 2, I observed pretty much the exact same thing. So I guess spraying it 4 times under 4 edges, I guess, is not enough either. The friction is a little bit uneven. It locks up randomly. Like sometimes it overshoots, sometimes it undershoots. I wasn't able to do really quick permutations with it on— without it, you know, locking up or something. Yeah, I wouldn't use this either. Only at number 3 I began to see some improvements. So this one also has some uneven friction at times, but it's much better. It flows much faster. And, uh, I'm pretty sure that after some fine-tuning with the screwdriver in some of the faces, and after a little bit more practice with this one, I could get— this could be one of the best cubes I have out of all of these. So spraying it 6 times seems to be pretty promising so far. So for #4, I sprayed in 8 edges, and I would say that it shows. So it's a little bit over lubed for my taste. So what happened is that it's really incredibly easy to turn, but when you're solving with it, you need to really just touch it lightly to make it do its movements. Otherwise, it's going to lock up on you, or— yeah, pretty much just lock up on you if you try to force it. Force it to do things. But if you do very light movements, then it can flow very nicely. So I would call— between 3 and 4, I would say that it's a matter of personal preference and style. So number 5 was the same as number 2, but it was worked— the lube was worked in for 2 minutes as opposed to 30 seconds. And I would say that it actually made some difference. It doesn't have as uneven friction as number 2. So I'm guessing that the Jigaloo needs really some time to distribute itself around the cube better. So it still needs a little more lube for my taste because the friction is too high, but I mean, this could be a pretty good speedcube. Sort of. Okay, number 6 was 8 edges sprayed in just like in number 4. But it was worked in for 2 minutes. And I also had a note about #6 that it was much stiffer than all the other cubes, and I think that came through, and that kind of screwed up my results with this one because it's visibly stiffer, probably because the cube came like that. And I kind of adjusted the tension on it, and it seems much better now. So it's the same thing that I observed with #5. The friction is not that uneven anymore, so that's very good. A pretty decent speedcube, I would say. Could be. Next I have #7. So the problem with #7 is clearly, without any doubt, that there is just not enough lube. I mean, the friction is really too high and there is way too much clicking inside, and I personally would not be able to use a speedcube like this. So I'm going to have to insert more lube into it. So one sweep with the lube after disassembly is not enough. But it is very uniform, quite uniform. So that's pretty good. In #8, I just made two full sweeps. So it seems that it's much better than #7. You can feel that there is more lube in there and that it moves much easier and that the the friction is much lower, and it's also quite uniform around the cube, but maybe not as uniform as if you work it in for longer. I mean, you would think that if you distribute all the pieces and just spray them that it should be uniform enough, but I think that as I let it dry, maybe gravity pushed those drops a little bit to edges and stuff like that, and maybe it screwed up the surface a little bit because it's not as uneven as these. And finally I have number 9. So this was full 3 sweeps of lube after disassembly. And I have to say that I kind of like this cube. I think it came out very nice. I would use this as a speedcube. It feels very clicky, which is sometimes a good thing. It's quite uniform and it feels pretty good. So I would use this. Finally, I'd like to mention that from my previous experience with Jigaloo, it needs some time before it really starts to work its magic. About a few weeks of light usage is usually enough, but in the end, the friction becomes incredibly low and the corners cut like butter. So this is a DIY Type D, just like these, that I've had for a long time now, and I only use Jigaloo with this one, and it's very nice. It's one of my favorite speedcubes. It cuts corners very easily and just, just a very nice cube. So these probably need a little more time of usage as well. Okay, so in conclusion, from this experiment I am quite convinced that the best way to lube a cube is to pop 5 to 8 edge pieces from around the cube and spray Jigloo in there. It is a good idea to take at least 2 minutes to work in the lube so that it has time to spread out as evenly as possible. Another decent strategy is to completely disassemble the cube and spray the pieces with at least 2 or 3 full sweeps of Jake Lube. However, not only is this method more time-consuming, but it did not yield noticeably more satisfactory results compared to the former method. Okay, and that's the end of my experiment. If you have some personal experiences with lubing or a method that you are convinced works very well, feel free to share it in form of a video response or a comment. And that's it for now. Later. Basically the same except for this one. This one is very, very hard to turn, noticeably so. It's very stiff. You can't cut corner at all. I wonder what's wrong with it. Can't even pop a piece, what the hell. Ah, my th—

fuck. There we go.

Minor damage to plastic. It looks normal. I wonder what, what is wrong with it.