Wooden Bandaged Rubik Cube

This is my Rubik cube modification.  According the information from Twisty Puzzles Museum this puzzle design is from Hidetoshi Takeji. You can read more about this puzzle from here.

But I will describe here basic method for making a bandaged wooden Rubik cube from a standard Rubik cube. You can make different bandaged cubes with same method. You can find different bandaged Rubik cube designs from "Twisty Puzzle Museum".

If you like mechanical puzzles you can read more from my mechanical puzzle blog and you can find other puzzle projects

This is a very easy to make bandaged cube. I started with a standard good quality Rubik cube.

First I peel off all labels and clean cube surfaces with a paper towel and paint thinner.

According to puzzle design I applied labels made from masking tape onto the pieces that I will fix with glue. 

After, I removed the center cap. You can remove this with a small craft knife. According to cube that you will use, this cap may be easy or difficult to remove. Original Rubik cubes are more difficult for opening. 

In this step you can remove the screw with a small screwdriver and take out the pieces that you will fix together. You don't need to remove all pieces.

Now you can fix pieces with glue. I used a special glue for acrylic and hard plastics. That melt two pieces and fix them together. Brands can change according to country. 

First remove paper labels with care. In this step be careful and don't change the orientation of the pieces. Apply a thin layer of glue to both side. If you don't have a gluing jig you can put a box, wood pieces etc on a flat wooden surface and fix both pieces by using this wooden surfaces as reference as seen in the photo. After that let pieces to dry.

When your glue hardened, you can assemble your cube. And apply labels again.
Now you can prepare your wooden tiles.

First prepare wooden sticks in same width with your cube labels. You can cut them with a small desktop table saw and round edges with a hand file or sanding machine etc. Finish your tiles by fine sanding. I can advise 120, 180 and 300 grit sandpaper. I used 6mm thick wood. If you like you can use 2 mm thick wood and you can find this from shops that sells materials for model ship builders.

I used different kind of woods. On the photo ovangkol and beech looks very similar. But on the cube more distinctive. In any case this is the problem of wooden tiles. If you can't find different kind of woods, you can paint also your tiles. Painting with different color inks is a good alternative.

Now cut your tiles from your sticks according to your cube dimensions. Finish your tiles with thinner and lacquer mixture, or you can use other finish methods like danish oil, shellac etc. and let them to dry.

In this last step you can fix your tiles on cube surfaces with glue. You can use two component epoxy glue for fixing wood to plastic. And your cube is ready to play. If you like mechanical puzzles you can read more and you can find more puzzle projects from my puzzle blog "Diypuzzles"