# Mf8 Legend Review - Legendary Cube



## andrewgk (Mar 8, 2011)

Ok, I just wanted to share with you guys my review of the Mf8 Legend.

If you want to skip all the reading (although what I will write is much more in-depth and better composed) you can find my youtube review here: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJhdEtjgz9I

Some hard facts:
Cubies are about 2mm-3mm smaller than standard cubies.
Cubies are rounded off on all edges and corners making for a very 'soft' feeling cube.
The cube's mechanism is a ball core with screw spring structure.
The edges are made of two pieces.
The corners are made of three pieces.
The large 'winged' edges and corners make the puzzle extremely resistant to popping.
The ball core minimizes friction of the pieces when rotating around the ball core.

Alright, now onto the opinionated part. First off, I completely love this cube. I was previously using a Lubix DaYan GuHong Ultimate (I will refer to this simply as a 'GuHong' from now on) and switched almost immediately after receiving this puzzle. Out of the box, it turned OK and was already faster than many cubes. After that, I took some mefferts and lubed the ball core simply by dripping some into it. Immediately the puzzle became 5x faster and was even much faster than my GuHong. I did notice while solving with it that it often locked up if I was sloppy with it. At this point, the cube could cut line to line (about 30 degrees) and reverse corner cutting was almost non-existent. Even so, I preferred the speed over the corner cutting abilities of my GuHong because I'm not a very sloppy cuber.

Today when I got home, I was wondering if I could make the Legend even better, so that even for sloppy cubers, it would be an amazing cube. So I solved it a couple times, trying to be sloppy and soon realized that the corners often catch on the centers. I had previously never lubed the actual pieces and thought that by lubing the edges of the corners, I would fix this lock up problem. So, basically I took the cube apart and on each edge of each corner I applied a very small amount of Lubix. Afterwards, I used my finger to spread the Lubix around and wipe off some of the excess. While putting the cube back together, I was looking at how the pieces mesh together (can be seen in my video) and realized that there probably is a lot of friction as the corners slide over each of the edges. I previously had already lubricated that part ever so slightly, but I proceeded to add half a pea size drop of Lubix on one of the orange and red edges. While I was at it, I touched the core and realized that the mefferts lube (that I had previously put on) was wearing off astonishingly fast. So I took two half-pea sized drops of Lubix and applied them to each hemisphere of the core.

After assembling the cube after all this lubing, I was astonished that the cube became even _faster!_ In addition, the corner cutting increased to 45 degrees and reverse corner cutting increased to half a cubie (*Edit: 3/8/11 I just want to say that I was completely wrong about it being able to cut half a cubie. It does reverse cut better, but does not cut half a cubie. As of now, it can comfortably cut about 1/3rd of a cubie. It sometimes can cut through half a cubie if you are very light with the cube and attempt it fairly fast.*). It does not lock up anymore when I try to solve roughly on it, and I truly believe that this is the successor to the GuHong.

In conclusion, I would like to add that I have smaller than average hands, and therefore the slightly smaller design of the Legend is greatly beneficial to me. I also really appreciate the rounded pieces of the Legend because it does not make my fingers tender like the GuHong did. Also, because of the slightly smaller size of the pieces, regular stickers are not recommended for this puzzle. Although they do fit, they will hang off the rounded edges. F2 sized stickers, or 4x4x4 stickers (which is what I'm using) are the best choices.

Summary of lubing:
Two half-pea sized drops of Lubix rubbed around the ball core.
Each center lightly lubricated on each of it's 4 edges.
Adding some Lubix to the outside parts of the 'wings' of two edges on opposite sides.
_(Quick note: When using extremely thick lubricants such as Lubix, or any equivalent, make sure you use very very small amounts! If you put too much, it will make your puzzle slower. If you choose to wait until a lubricant as thick as Lubix to wear off, you will have to wait quite a while.)_

Thanks for reading my review of the Mf8 Legend.
If any of you have an Mf8 Legend and would like to know how to lubricate the cube, I will be making an instructional video on how to do so on my channel: TwoAsianCubers
You can also check back on this thread for a link to the tutorial.
*Edit: Lubing guide can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XovN2E6YEw8*

(_On a final note, I would like to note that I did not specifically use the "Lubix" product on my puzzle. I use a silicon oil which is extremely similar to Lubix but is not branded as Lubix. I chose to leave it's name out of the thread because I feel like I should keep it a secret. If you truly want to find an alternative to Lubix, do some research- it's not hard to find._)


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## ~Adam~ (Mar 8, 2011)

Pea sized? Really? I thought I was using a product that was extremely close to Lubix and I used less than a pea sized amount on my V7.

edit - sorry, I just read the fine print.


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## Zarxrax (Mar 8, 2011)

Wow, sounds very nice!
But you are saying that just lubing this thing caused the corner cutting to increase dramatically? Hmmm...

Could you also mention how the corner cutting is for M slices? I have a lot of trouble doing MU U-perms on non-guhong cubes, because I lock up on those.
And how does the loudness compare to other cubes?


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## collinbxyz (Mar 8, 2011)




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## andrewgk (Mar 8, 2011)

cube-o-holic said:


> Pea sized? Really? I thought I was using a product that was extremely close to Lubix and I used less than a pea sized amount on my V7.
> 
> edit - sorry, I just read the fine print.



I just realized that you are indeed right about a 'pea size'. Pea size is way too much. Its much more like half a pea. The stuff that I'm using is *extremely* thick.


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## andrewgk (Mar 8, 2011)

Zarxrax said:


> Wow, sounds very nice!
> But you are saying that just lubing this thing caused the corner cutting to increase dramatically? Hmmm...
> 
> Could you also mention how the corner cutting is for M slices? I have a lot of trouble doing MU U-perms on non-guhong cubes, because I lock up on those.
> And how does the loudness compare to other cubes?


 
Lubing it did seem to increase cutting dramatically, as far as I can see. As for MU U-perms, I'm sad that say that its not that great. Although it can do them with relative ease, it does lock up noticeably more than a GuHong.
Loudness is one of the bigger problems with the cube. It tends to be very clicky in the fact that it has a lot of surface area moving whenever you make turns. This of course contributes to the stability of the mechanism. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is absolutely quiet and 10 is unbearably loud, I would rate this puzzle an 7.5 unlubed (or lightly lubed as I did at the beginning of my 'story') and a 6 after it has been lubed as I described in my review. Lubing the edge pieces really muffles down the 'clicks'. I'm sure that at some point, someone will come out with a modification to fix these clicks. Although a bit noisy, I do like the clickiness.


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## timeless (Mar 8, 2011)

andrewgk said:


> I just realized that you are indeed right about a 'pea size'. Pea size is way too much. Its much more like half a pea. The stuff that I'm using is *extremely* thick.


 
u mean shock oil?


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## NeedReality (Mar 8, 2011)

I just received mine today and I love it as well. My only problem is the corner cutting isn't on par with the GuHong. I rely heavily on M slices and it does seem to lock up a bit on those. However, the speed is amazing and I hope I can make this my main cube soon.

I'm looking forward to your lubricating tutorial. I might have to get around to getting some Lubix. Are those 4x4 stickers in your vid or the stock stickers? I've gotta replace mine to my proper colors and so I've gotta decide on F2 or 4x4 stickers.


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## andrewgk (Mar 8, 2011)

NeedReality said:


> I just received mine today and I love it as well. My only problem is the corner cutting isn't on par with the GuHong. I rely heavily on M slices and it does seem to lock up a bit on those. However, the speed is amazing and I hope I can make this my main cube soon.
> 
> I'm looking forward to your lubricating tutorial. I might have to get around to getting some Lubix. Are those 4x4 stickers in your vid or the stock stickers? I've gotta replace mine to my proper colors and so I've gotta decide on F2 or 4x4 stickers.



These are 4x4 stickers although I would have preferred F2 stickers. I'm not 100% sure though on whether or not F2 stickers will fit on this cube. 4x4 Stickers fit alright, but bigger stickers would help with faster recognition. I occasionally still have recognition problems after using this cube for two days; its definitely something you can get used to but I still would prefer bigger stickers.

P.S. Make sure you also dial in your tensions.

Edit: *In the video I actually have the stock Legend stickers on. Right now, I have 4x4 stickers on.*


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## andrewgk (Mar 9, 2011)

Just uploaded my (crappy) lubing guide for the mf8 legend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XovN2E6YEw8

P.S. I just want to say that I was completely wrong about it being able to cut half a cubie. It does reverse cut better, but does not cut half a cubie. It can comfortably cut 1/3rd of a cubie on all sides, and *sometimes* cut half a cubie if you're lucky. I've realized that the reverse corner cutting is much better if you are handling the cube very lightly while turning it fairly quickly.


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## Whyusosrs? (Mar 9, 2011)

My ears bled for a good 20 minutes after I watched collin's videos. 

Cube looks cool... I like the cubie size


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## sofeeuhh (Aug 4, 2011)

You assembled this cube yourself? Could you pleaseeeee make an assembly guide or help me? I can't seem to get the core assembled, the screws won't go into the cube!


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## Bapao (Aug 4, 2011)

Flip the centers around and try again please.

http://www.twistypuzzles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=20103&start=0


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## sofeeuhh (Aug 4, 2011)

b4p4076 said:


> Flip the centers around and try again please.
> 
> http://www.twistypuzzles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=20103&start=0


 
If you're trying to answer my question, I already have. I've tried multiple times with the centers flipped both ways, and it sill won't work. 
Edit: And ahh, I think I made a mistake in my first post, I should probably add more detail to my problem. 1.) The springs won't go into the ball core. 2.) The screw won't screw into the core. And as another minor problem, I can't get the caps onto the center pieces. I think this may show that I'm extremely inexperienced in assembling cubes or something of the sort.


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## Bapao (Aug 4, 2011)

Please post photos of what you've managed to assemble so far. There are already springs in the core if the core was preassembled (as they mostly are). The springs in the DIY bag are merely meant as reserves.

The caps are just "brute force" btw. They will fit. If they have any lube on them whatsoever, they'll pop right back off though. When in doubt, use house-hold flour to compensate that problem.


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## sofeeuhh (Aug 4, 2011)

I've managed to assemble the cube just now! Thanks so much for all the help, I even managed to get the caps on by smashing it in with the blunt end of my screwdriver! But just a quick question, when the cube comes in DIY kit, does Mf8 give you extra springs just for whatever? Because right now, I have it assembled without the screws in that it came with.


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## Bapao (Aug 4, 2011)

sofeeuhh said:


> I've managed to assemble the cube just now! Thanks so much for all the help, I even managed to get the caps on by smashing it in with the blunt end of my screwdriver! But just a quick question, when the cube comes in DIY kit,* does Mf8 give you extra springs just for whatever?* Because right now, I have it assembled without the screws in that it came with.


 
Apparently so. Actual reason unknown (I tend to think of them as reserves). Congrats for getting it assembled though. Fast cube huh? Although, the cleanliness it demands of your cubing style might effect your times at first. It's like the LunHui on steroids. Have fun.


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## teller (Aug 4, 2011)

b4p4076 said:


> Apparently so. Actual reason unknown (I tend to think of them as reserves). Congrats for getting it assembled though. Fast cube huh? Although, the cleanliness it demands of your cubing style might effect your times at first. It's like the LunHui on steroids. Have fun.


I really like toying around with this cube, but there is just no way I can make my turns so perfectly square. But if there is someone out there who can actually control this thing, they will be dangerous with it.


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## Bapao (Aug 4, 2011)

teller said:


> I really like toying around with this cube, but there is just no way I can make my turns so perfectly square.* But if there is someone out there who can actually control this thing, they will be dangerous with it*.


 
I couldn't agree more  DaYan made us lazy though...


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## Pazuzu (Aug 5, 2011)

When the legend was released there was a silent assembly video I saw from Hong Kong and the first thing the guy did was take the springs and chuck them away, not needed. 

I love this cube, it is by far the fastest I own and every so often I'll pick it up and be shocked how sloppy I am. I blame DaYan! If you've got great technique or want to improve your turning this is a great but unforgiving cube.

Oh, and I got mine from Calvinfan's eBay store when it came out, it was a DIY and didn't come with any stickers or a box or anything. I used a spare guhong set but they are too large and it doesn't have a logo either.


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## yockee (Aug 5, 2011)

sofeeuhh said:


> If you're trying to answer my question, I already have. I've tried multiple times with the centers flipped both ways, and it sill won't work.
> Edit: And ahh, I think I made a mistake in my first post, I should probably add more detail to my problem. 1.) The springs won't go into the ball core. 2.) The screw won't screw into the core. And as another minor problem, I can't get the caps onto the center pieces. I think this may show that I'm extremely inexperienced in assembling cubes or something of the sort.


 
First, check to make sure that the 2 little screws which hold together the two halves of the ball core, are tightened. Second, the springs that come in the bag are unnecessary. There are already springs inside the ball. Now, you should be able to screw into the ball. Just make sure the centers have those big flap things facing out. These hold the cap on. The caps are VERY HARD to get onto the centers. It took me quite a while. They will go on. Lastly, tighten this cube as much as you can without it being so tight that it doesn't turn, so it doesn't lock as much. This cube needs to be tight. Lubix helps a LOT for locks. 

Whoops! Just saw that you managed to get it together.


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