# Plastic Hardness



## Puzzlaholic (Feb 13, 2010)

I know there are different hardnesses for plastics, and I was wondering if you can find out how hard the plastic is on your puzzle.
You see, I have a Cube4You D.I.Y kit (black) and it has a little circle on the inside of the puzzle with an arrow pointing at a 10 that looks like this: 0↑9
What does it mean?


----------



## daniel0731ex (Feb 13, 2010)

Puzzlaholic said:


> I know there are different hardnesses for plastics, and I was wondering if you can find out how hard the plastic is on your puzzle.
> You see, I have a Cube4You D.I.Y kit (black) and it has a little circle on the inside of the puzzle with an arrow pointing at a 10 that looks like this: 0↑9
> What does it mean?



i think it shows the date of the mold.


----------



## Cubenovice (Feb 24, 2010)

daniel0731ex said:


> Puzzlaholic said:
> 
> 
> > I know there are different hardnesses for plastics, and I was wondering if you can find out how hard the plastic is on your puzzle.
> ...



That would indeed be the so-called "date-stamp" of the mold indicating the particular piece was produced in october 2009.

As far as hardness of plastic goes this is typically expressed in Shore hardness A and D. However for the standard thermoplastics like ABS (of which cubes are generally made) this hardness is never specified.
It is always used for soft, flexible materials such as TPE's and silicones.

Now what *would* be intersting for cube plastic is the friction coefficient. For instance POM which has excellent friction and wear properties. Then again, POM on POM friction can give sqeeking noises...

But there would still be the possibility to use plastics with additives like teflon, silicone, erucamide aor oleamide to improve tribological properties. 

I am wondering if any of the cube manufactures are actually using these materials???


----------



## daniel0731ex (Feb 24, 2010)

Cubenovice said:


> daniel0731ex said:
> 
> 
> > Puzzlaholic said:
> ...



i think the type A II have ABS and POM versons, and the A-V have a PC verson.


----------

