A reverse-engineering project that began with one cheap Rubik’s Cube turned into an eight-month effort to reproduce the puzzle from scratch using injection molding. The builder recreated the cube’s parts in CAD, milled injection molds from 6061 aluminum, and e
If you just want to play, you can buy a Rubik’s Cube from a local toy store. But for one maker, the real pull was never the game—it was the machinery behind it.
The project started as a fun reverse-engineering effort and stretched into an eight-month journey to reproduce Rubik’s Cubes from scratch using injection molding. [EngBroken] didn’t begin with fancy optics or a wholesale copy of someone else’s design. Instead. he started by identifying the basic pieces that make up the cheap cube he bought: the center core. the edge pieces. and the corner pieces.
From there, the work moved into CAD. Parts were recreated digitally, and then the physical production phase began with injection mold design and milling. [EngBroken] built the injection molds out of 6061 aluminium. setting up a process meant not just for one cube. but for quantities—because injection molding shines when you can run parts repeatedly.
Color was where the project got unusual. To get the correct colors for separate cube parts. [EngBroken] mixed cut-up pieces of 3D printer filament with clear ABS pellets. tinting the plastic as needed. After that, parts were assembled with UV-curing glue, and the maker had a Rubik’s cube built from scratch.
He didn’t just build one. Because injection molding is well-suited to producing batches, he ended up with several cubes, assembled from the stack of molded parts.
But there’s a cost to that kind of ambition. This isn’t a fast or cheap route if the goal is simply owning a Rubik’s Cube. [EngBroken] estimates the labor alone came out to $56,000—before counting the work needed to produce all the aluminium molds and source the plastic.
Even so, he didn’t walk away empty-handed. A lot was learned through the process, and injection molding’s specific challenges clearly factored into why the project took so long.
The video documenting the effort is embedded here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u5S42VUU38.
injection molding Rubik’s Cube 6061 aluminum CAD UV-curing glue ABS pellets 3D printer filament reverse engineering