Rather than throw away my horrible megaminx clone that I bought 18 months ago, I decided to do something useful with it.

I've truncated it to double the number of sides from 12 to 24, forming a tetrakis hexahedron.

The quality of the mod is a bit poor, but considering the low quality of the base puzzle, I'm not going to spend any more time trying to improve it.

I've stickered it using 12 colours. There is no parity to worry about.

Having done some searching, Jurgen Brandt made a partial truncation on a genuine Megaminx, seen here at TwistyPuzzles http://twistypuzzles.com/articles/spotl ... rgen.shtml but I'm not sure if anyone else here has done a full tetrakis truncation.

It doesn't really add anything to the solving of the puzzle, apart from the confusing shape changes.

I find the tetrakis hexahedron shape quite interesting, as it's very easy to pick out other geometric shapes when looking at it - a cube, rhombic dodecahedron and even a tetrahedron can easily be spotted.

WOW that does not look poor at all it looks factory made
fantastic job

but how does it turn?

very nice! vid plz

Excellent. It looks pretty.

Thomas

Well it is truncated so you can see the stars that are usually in the middle of each face of a megaminx and I assume it just turns the same way... but I would love to see a video though.

Well done

Fantastic work.... looks great!!!

Beautiful. Keep up the good work!

Dave

Very impressive indeed.

It would be very interesting to see the other shapes you listed being made out of a Megaminx (Rhombic Dodecahedron and Tetrahedron).

Another one that I would like to add to my collection!

Definitely an honor for any puzzle builder.

Wow. Stop coming up with all these lovely mods. I can't keep up.

It's brilliant.

Justin, you are a genius.

well done

Bravo!
Fantastic work!
To make this masterpiece from unwanted puzzle... that's amazing!
vadim

Looks like you're half way to having Tony Fisher's Hexaminx

WooooW! This mod looks really nice, Great job!!
I wonder how you do the truncation? Miller or made a jig saw to cut? or .......
and how you cut the stickers?


When you say your "horrible megaminx clone " you mean
this http://www.cube4you.com/102_New-Megaminx.html
or this http://www.cube4you.com/307_Megaminx(PVC-sticker).html
or its earlier version?

-John Lin from Kaohsiung Taiwan
The real models are always the best approach to Shapes, Space, and Symmetry.

It looks sensational to me. But did you do anything to improve the movement of the base megaminx?

WOW!

wow....


Nice work Justin! Looks beautiful.

What a great way to recycle a lame puzzle!
Awesome job.

This is amazing, It is very cleanly made

This does indeed set a high standard for shape variants. Very nicely done.

Given the length and design of the non-truncated (is that a term? haha) edges, I would guess that it is the first link because the PVC minx doesn't have pointed edges.

I have the PVC one and wouldn't really call it horrible, but I've heard pretty bad things about the other puzzle.

Thanks for all the positive comments.



Horrible "New Megaminx" type core and corners, edges from the version that came before it (first ones sold by Cube4You). They look identical but there is a difference in the quality of the edges. Despite the tiles being higher quality, the sides of the edges on a "New Megaminx" are actually worse, being slightly caved in at the centre and this will show up when you cut the piece, resulting in extra filling etc. Luckily I had some spare edges from the early version to work on.

I think the quality of the PVC type is very good, but the geometry wasn't suitable for this shape mod.

I don't own, or have access to any specialist tools or equipment. I used a junior hacksaw to truncate a few sides, then filled, filed and sanded as accurately as possible, then used those pieces as a reference guide for all the remaining pieces.

The stickers were hand cut with a craft knife and metal rule... all 180 of them... Arrrrgh!



I read somewhere here, the.drizzle started a pillowed tetrahedral megaminx.

I think a pillowed rhombic dodecahedron would be do-able (I was tempted!). A flat planed one would require a lot of work (I think the New Megaminx version can take the cuts) and would be a fantastic shape mod - a 12 sided version of a 12 sided puzzle.



The pieces were popped and re-inserted so many times, the movement has improved slightly of it's own accord. The tension is pretty much permanent now - the adjustment screws were covered with the filed down centre tiles before covering with Milliput, so in theory I can still drill down through and adjust them.

When these puzzles first came out, I tried improving the movement by drilling into the raised areas which click into the notches - my reasoning being, a notch passing over a notch would negate clicking and improve movement. Much to my surprise it made little difference and the results certainly didn't reflect the time and effort I put in.

Congrats!
Really a very interesting design - even if the base mechanism isn't as nice as you wanted.
The quality of your modification is very good and transforms the original to an outstanding mod.

Love the look of this puzzle--very spiff indeed!

I just thought I'd throw my 2 cents in on the rhombic-dodecahedron mod though...

I started in on the flat-surface version a little while ago with one of the new-pvc sticker megaminxes. The short version of the story is that you have to make the basic puzzle really big first, or you end up having to cut too much out in certain places, which just destroys the puzzle. Like I did.

The pillowed version, though, would work well--I sketched it up and it looks like it should be fine, I simply haven't started it yet...

The pillowed tetrahedron (codname: pyramid scheme) is about 95% done--just needs a little bit more work to a few pieces, and some paint / stickers...