# Fangshi ShuangRen Mod - Smoother pieces



## PedroSabioni (Jun 13, 2013)

I tried this cube with and without lube and the lube seems to slow it up, so I wiped it. I was unhappy with the "sandy" feeling and as I tough I wouldn't use it as my main, i decided to mod it. I rubbed two pieces of 220 sandpaper, creating a fine sand. Then I put the powder in the cube and played with it. After cleaning the sand, the pieces surface became smooth. The turning feeling now pleases me, and now it's one of my two mains (the other is a 55mm original plastic ZhanChi). Also, the lube now works normally.

Here's a picture of a modded piece and an unmodded one:


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## MarcelP (Jun 13, 2013)

Interesting! I will try that too.


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## IMSLOW1097 (Jun 13, 2013)

how much of this powder did you use? i'm thinking about doing this now.


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## uniacto (Jun 13, 2013)

how many solves did you do with it? it gets waaay smoother, trust me.


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 13, 2013)

IMSLOW1097 said:


> how much of this powder did you use? i'm thinking about doing this now.



It was about 1mL. You just have to play with it well. I solved it around 20 times with the sand.


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## Username (Jun 13, 2013)

How did you clean it?


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 13, 2013)

Username said:


> How did you clean it?



I disassembled the cube and put the pieces in water. Then I dried, lubed, and assembled it. (=


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## arcio1 (Jun 13, 2013)

Best mod for this is doing bunch of solves.


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 13, 2013)

arcio1 said:


> Best mod for this is doing bunch of solves.



Well, I haven't tried a very broken in cube, so I can't tell you. )= 
But I would like you to feel mine, because I really like the feeling.


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## uniacto (Jun 13, 2013)

can you make a video by any chance? I'd like to see it.


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 13, 2013)

uniacto said:


> can you make a video by any chance? I'd like to see it.



Sorry, I had troube with the camera. But anyway, if this is not the most smooth the cube can get, I think the mod is a shortcut for that, so you don't have to do 1000 solves.


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## uniacto (Jun 13, 2013)

PedroSabioni said:


> Sorry, I had troube with the camera. But anyway, if this is not the most smooth the cube can get, I think the mod is a shortcut for that, so you don't have to do 1000 solves.



ah okay. that's fine. Shortcuts are always good  what type of powder did you use?


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## Carrot (Jun 13, 2013)

uniacto said:


> ah okay. that's fine. Shortcuts are always good  *what type of powder did you use?*





PedroSabioni said:


> *I rubbed two pieces of 220 sandpaper, creating a fine sand*. Then I put the powder in the cube and played with it.



^^^


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 13, 2013)

uniacto said:


> ah okay. that's fine. Shortcuts are always good  what type of powder did you use?



As I said, the powder is a fine sand from 220 sandpaper


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## uniacto (Jun 13, 2013)

Odder said:


> ^^^





PedroSabioni said:


> As I said, the powder is a fine sand from 220 sandpaper



my bad T-T

i misread that as he first used the sandpaper and then put in some form of powder. Now I see why my reading comprehension score was so low. haha


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## CarlBrannen (Jun 13, 2013)

I'm building two of these as prizes at the world cubing competition in Las Vegas. I've also done some mods that reduce the sandy feeling. These can be awesome cubes.


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## mark49152 (Jun 13, 2013)

Yep awesome indeed. When I go back to my Zhanchi it feels catchy by comparison.


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## Username (Jun 14, 2013)

I've already done about 1000-1500 solves on this thing, is it possible to get it even smoother by doing this?


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## mati1242 (Jun 14, 2013)

Username said:


> I've already done about 1000-1500 solves on this thing, is it possible to get it even smoother by doing this?



Hmmm maybe, but honestly I don't think it will become any better. 

I have also done like 2000+ solves on mine and it's pretty smooth, but not as smooth as my Zhanchi


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## Masimosir (Jun 14, 2013)

I tension the cube until it very tight and just randomly scamble it and maybe do some solve , about a day and a half it smooth out the surface


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## YddEd (Jun 14, 2013)

I did this, and while I was working it in it was kind of stiff. I kept on working it in and after I finished working it in, I cleaned the pieces. It didn't really make much of a difference but that's probably because I only did it for 5 minutes. (I'll do it again later)


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## Ross The Boss (Jun 14, 2013)

in a video by cyoubix, he said that he did over 1000 solves to get it like this.


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 14, 2013)

Username said:


> I've already done about 1000-1500 solves on this thing, is it possible to get it even smoother by doing this?



I don't think so... Mine had around 200 solves when I did it, so I can't really tell, but people are saying it gets smoother by solving it. As I said to another guy, this mod may not make to cube the most smooth it can get, but I think it's a shortcut to that If you have a not broken in cube.


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 14, 2013)

YddEd said:


> I did this, and while I was working it in it was kind of stiff. I kept on working it in and after I finished working it in, I cleaned the pieces. It didn't really make much of a difference but that's probably because I only did it for 5 minutes. (I'll do it again later)



Make sure to get the sand of the pieces completely. When I modified mine, I didn't cleaned it well and it was slow, then I used a swab to clean the sand of areas of difficult access


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## YddEd (Jun 14, 2013)

PedroSabioni said:


> Make sure to get the sand of the pieces completely. When I modified mine, I didn't cleaned it well and it was slow, then I used a swab to clean the sand of areas of difficult access


Yeah, my pieces kind of look like yours, I think I just didn't clean it out properly. The corners are also supposed to be smoothed out too, right? Could you put a picture or two of the corners?


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## Lagom (Jun 14, 2013)

I did this when I first got the cube. I guess it just speeds up the breaking in process.


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## mark49152 (Jun 14, 2013)

I would not do this. The cube improves on its own, and I would not want to sand the entire internals including bits that don't need sanding.


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## MarcelP (Jun 14, 2013)

I tried the sanding. I used real fine grain. I solved about 20 solves with sand in cube. Then washed with old toothbrush and hot water. Then cleaned with alchohol. The cube is now so slooooow. Easily my worst cube ever.  Since this was my worst Fanshi anyway I do not really mind. I have a brand new one on the way from China that I will be breaking in the normal way. Solving without lube.


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## YddEd (Jun 14, 2013)

MarcelP said:


> I tried the sanding. I used real fine grain. I solved about 20 solves with sand in cube. Then washed with old toothbrush and hot water. Then cleaned with alchohol. The cube is now so slooooow. Easily my worst cube ever.  Since this was my worst Fanshi anyway I do not really mind. I have a brand new one on the way from China that I will be breaking in the normal way. Solving without lube.


Did you put the pieces in cold water after putting them in hot water? I think other people say putting pieces in hot water makes the pieces softer or something, and makes it bad.


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## MarcelP (Jun 14, 2013)

Oops, yes very hot water.. I thought hot water cleaned better, but never thouht about softening the plastic. Good thing my other Fangshi is still an awesome cube and I do not need to do that there.


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## YddEd (Jun 14, 2013)

MarcelP said:


> Oops, yes very hot water.. I thought hot water cleaned better, but never thouht about softening the plastic. Good thing my other Fangshi is still an awesome cube and I do not need to do that there.


That might be why it made the cube really bad


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## sneaklyfox (Jun 14, 2013)

Ok, so one must wonder why they made the pieces with the texture instead of just starting out smooth in the first place?


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## YddEd (Jun 14, 2013)

sneaklyfox said:


> Ok, so one must wonder why they made the pieces with the texture instead of just starting out smooth in the first place?


I guess they might have tried it but thought the textured plastic felt better? I don't really mind it, it's really fast and controllable at least.


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## sneaklyfox (Jun 14, 2013)

YddEd said:


> I guess they might have tried it but thought the textured plastic felt better? I don't really mind it, it's really fast and controllable at least.



Ok, but since with "breaking in" it gets smooth then that means the texture wears down and is that supposed to be a good thing if it's meant to be textured?


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## YddEd (Jun 14, 2013)

sneaklyfox said:


> Ok, but since with "breaking in" it gets smooth then that means the texture wears down and is that supposed to be a good thing if it's meant to be textured?


Well not all of it gets smoothed out (unless you sand it completely) , so I'm thinking that there would be a slight 'feel' to it that makes it what it is.


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 14, 2013)

YddEd said:


> Could you put a picture or two of the corners?


Ok, just wait some hours, I'm at school.


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 14, 2013)

MarcelP said:


> I tried the sanding. I used real fine grain. I solved about 20 solves with sand in cube. Then washed with old toothbrush and hot water. Then cleaned with alchohol. The cube is now so slooooow. Easily my worst cube ever.  Since this was my worst Fanshi anyway I do not really mind. I have a brand new one on the way from China that I will be breaking in the normal way. Solving without lube.



That's not what happened with mine, strange... Are you using lube? I'm using maru lube an it's as fast as it was with no lube and no mod.


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## YddEd (Jun 14, 2013)

PedroSabioni said:


> That's not what happened with mine, strange... Are you using lube? I'm using maru lube an it's as fast as it was with no lube and *no mod.*


But.. I thought you did this mod to it?


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## Lchu613 (Jun 14, 2013)

Don't use very hot water, just warm. The hot water deforms the plastic. My friend boiled his Zhanchi Silk and now all the pieces are shrunken and non-cubic


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## Chree (Jun 14, 2013)

I have a white one and a black one. I might try this on ONE of them just to see how it goes. That way I can compare Modding vs Breaking In.


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## CarlBrannen (Jun 14, 2013)

Textured plastic sometimes arises as a result of how they manufacture the molds. The process is called "spark erosion" and gives sort of like an orange-peel kind of surface. It's easily recognizable if you've seen it before. Is this what the texture looks like? See page 2:

http://plastics.bayer.com/plastics/emea/en/literature/pdf/3001.pdf?docId=3001


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## Lagom (Jun 14, 2013)

I found a middle piece mod that works really well, it eliminates the lock ups and the cube flows a lot better. Im gonna try to lower the friction a bit tho, cause I find the fangshi a bit hard to turn...


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## Lchu613 (Jun 14, 2013)

Actually I think that's probably it!


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## mati1242 (Jun 14, 2013)

Lagom said:


> I found a middle piece mod that works really well, it eliminates the lock ups and the cube flows a lot better. Im gonna try to lower the friction a bit tho, cause I find the fangshi a bit hard to turn...



What exactly did you do to a edge piece so it moves better ?


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## uniacto (Jun 14, 2013)

yea okay so I just popped open my shuangren for a good look at the pieces. The edge pieces appear to be quite smooth in the areas of friction, so this mod is pretty much unnecessary if the cube is already been through 500-1000 solves. Like it was said earlier in the thread, this mod probably is just a shortcut for attaining a smoother feeling shuangren faster.


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## PedroSabioni (Jun 14, 2013)

YddEd said:


> But.. I thought you did this mod to it?



I said the cube now is as fast as it was before the mod


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## Lagom (Jun 14, 2013)

mati1242 said:


> What exactly did you do to a edge piece so it moves better ?



I just got 2 more Fangshi´s, so I'm gonna work on these and see what I come up with. Ive only got a bad camera now as well.
Ill make a thread the next week with all mods I find good


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## CubezUBR (Jun 20, 2013)

i like the frosted feeling. i wish it could stay forever


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## Edward (Jun 20, 2013)

Back in my day


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## EternalE (Sep 17, 2013)

Like and subscribe! anyway, I don't think I should try the fangshi mod, as last time I tried a mod that involved strategies like this my cube ended up in the trash.


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## Lchu613 (Sep 17, 2013)

I would be afraid of getting sand into the centers and screwing up that....

Anyhow I found this mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlroJq11GlI
It works quite well, makes the thing less crunchy and smoother, but without losing its swooshiness. I also think it's faster but that's probably just me.


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## tpt8899 (Dec 29, 2013)

I just broke my cube in- the pieces look basically the same as the one in the picture, and the cube is quite loose but I have one problem... IT FEELS SOOOOOO STIFF! and very crunchy on top of that! How do I make it smoother?


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## typeman5 (Dec 29, 2013)

get the version 2 and then break it in alot... its very good.


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## tpt8899 (Dec 30, 2013)

Its what I did


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## AdamB (Dec 30, 2013)

I've been using this as my main cube for a couple of months now. I really liked the scratchy feeling at first but this completely wore off after a couple of thousand solves leaving it catchy and **** feeling.

I took it apart and it was filled with dust, so I cleared it all out, reassembled, retensioned and sprayed some silicone lubricant in it, and now it's very very smooth and fast indeed. Especially on M turns.

This is an edge and a corner piece for reference. They still look pretty well lubed and it's been a week since I sprayed it.


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