Step 4 -- Solve remaining edge pieces

[gnrdmjfan247]

I am having a problem with the second part of this step. Not only are my middle edge pieces flipped wrong, but they are in the wrong place. I would appreciate if you showed how to switch them. thanks.

[jestaib]

I posted a video of me screwing up the second part of this step if you could watch it and tell me where I"m messing up, I'd really appreciate it.

[jestaib]

I posted a video of me screwing up the second part of this step if you could watch it and tell me where I"m messing up, I'd really appreciate it.

[jestaib]

I've been working on this for a week or two and I still can't manage to get the second part of this. I've figured out steps 5 and 6, but I'm still getting stuck here and I have no idea why...

[jeaysm]

What happens when you do the moves? Did you check through all of the possibilities on the web site for this part of the move?

[jestaib]

yeah, the moves never seem to work right (althought they usually have the same result when I do them). I usually end up with the top left and top back correct with the front top one upside down

[jestaib]

yeah, the moves never seem to work right (althought they usually have the same result when I do them). I usually end up with the top left and top back correct with the front top one upside down

[jeaysm]

That's very strange. No one's said that before! Not sure what to advise other than to triple-check the moves.

[Dave89rr]

On your site you said:

"Now, there are four possibilities: Luckily, the pieces are correct. Move to the next step and smile at your good fortune."

However, i've managed to make it be that way about 70% of the time, if not i get the fourth possiblity. :)

[purplewaves508]

for the first part of step four, what if it's on the right place but twisted incorrectly? how do i solve that?

[purplewaves508]

never mind, i got it.

[anojansmart]

d'oh!

[anojansmart]

...

[anojansmart]

oh wait, the last two have a certain sequence!?!

[jeaysm]

Yep, check the link in the sidebar!

[anojansmart]

i somehow keep screwing up here, and end up going back to step one :( i think its because i dont really understand what we are doing here. i noe, im a dummy :P

[jeaysm]

Well, the overall goal is to solve the 5 remaining edge pieces. For the first three (UF, UL and UR) you solve them by (if necessary) moving one of those to the BR location, and then to the correct location using a short sequence whereby you rotate the U face, then move R' or B to get that BR piece to the U face, then fix up the U face and get an unsolved edge piece back to the BR position. For the final two edge pieces, BR and UR, you just use a sequence from the list on the web page.

[anojansmart]

ive been at solution 2 at a month now, and no success. im noe just tried solution one, and i sent u a message with one of the problems i have occured so far. please help :)

[tucumalo]

If u want an easier way to do this step, watch m response vid.

[0kkin]

what do i do if the original UFL piece contains the color of the bottom face?? =/

[0kkin]

oops i should have posted this on Step 5

[thejeffm]

the link to the site isn't working anymore so i;m not able to get the las 2 edge peices in the correct position because i do not know what moves to make. any ideas?

[jeaysm]

Site is back up now...

Thanks for letting me know. Looks like my website was down for some technical reasons. The three moves are as follows (swap = make the pieces change places, flip = alter the orientation of the piece)

* to swap BR and UR (but not flip them): U' R' U' R U' R' U' R U'

* to flip BR and UR (but not swap them): B U' B' U R' U R U'

* to swap and flip BR and UR: B U B' U B U B' U2

[bosox229]

there's no point in doing all those steps; the pieces can simply be worked out logically. for example, in the video, at around the 2:30 mark, you could have just put the red-yellow piece where the blue-orange piece is located and then used U2 to take down the yellow-orange piece to work with. then you could have put the yellow-orange piece where the red-yellow piece was and used U2 to put the red-yellow piece in its place.

[anojansmart]

crap...

i screwed up and im back to step 1

:(

[cman88]

ok I figured out the move. I kept doing a U prime when you did a U. I just did it too fast. Thanks.

[cman88]

i'm stuck on the last part of this step. Whenever I do the moves it just ends up putting different edge pieces into the B R space.

[jeaysm]

Are you using the correct move? There are three situations for the last part. Check the link at the sidebar for details on each of the possibilities.

[baadshaahz]

I find phase 2 of step 4 the one that takes the longest. It's because I haven't memorized the algorithms for it (just can't be asked!). The only other algorithms to remember for this game are for steps 5 and 6 (the L.D2.L' / F'.D2.F moves), which are very easy. But remembering three sets of algorithms for step 4 in 3 different situations is a pain. Do you know of a simpler algorithm for this step, something common to all three situations? That would help. Thanks.

[jeaysm]

No, I don't know anything simpler. However, of the three sequences, you can remember just two. If you do both of them back to back it's equivalent to doing just the third alone. A bit slower, but one less move to remember.

[coachcashmoney]

Okay I'm stuck on this phase. Have been here for a couple of weeks. Can you make a video of the different bullet points that you talk about on this phase please.

[cardshark47]

okay, thanks

[cardshark47]

hey, one quick question, you say that there will be 5 remaining corner pieces, what do you mean and where should the be located?

[jeaysm]

Well, up to 5. Any or all of the 4 U face corner pieces, and possibly the DBR corner piece. The D face would be the original side that you solved in steps 1 and 2.

[DWONG528]

ok, i have the first 3 U face edge pieces in place. but the problem is that i can't do the last U face edge piece. in ur video the piece is in the right place, but the color is just wrong. but for MY situation, the pieces are in the wrong place. so how do put the working edge piece up to the U face

[jeaysm]

If the pieces are in the wrong place but are correctly oriented, do U' R' U' R U' R' U' R U'. If they both need swapping and orienting, do B U B' U B U B' U2.

[DWONG528]

hey thx man

[kevbew63]

I was having the hardest time with this step for a few days. Now I just logically get the last two edge pieces by "rotating" through all of the completed pieces until it completes itself. I don't know how to explain it but for me its easier to not memorize this step but to think through it and work it out. Once I got this down its a piece of cake!  Thanks for explaining this to me. You da man!

[whitesnake3636]

Im having trouble trying to figure out which edge pieces i am supposed to be solving, and also i am confused on how you are supposed to have the cube oriented.

[jeaysm]

I am a bit casual with exactly how I'm holding the cube in this step. In the first part you are solving the UF, UL and UB pieces, one at a time. In the second part you are solving the BR piece (the unsolved corner piece should be DBR) and UR together. If you're having trouble orienting the cube, the yellow-blue piece that you can see at the start of the video is in the BR location.

[whitesnake3636]

ooh ok thanks for the help ive got it now

[An1m3Fre4k85]

i have a few questions. at the end of step 3, the middle row on 3 of the faces had all of the same color lined up, and when u started step 4, they werent all lined up( horizontally). and, when i try to make the top color in a cross design, either the bottom messes up or the 3 horizontal middle pieces messes up. im stuck at this.

[xtmno3]

I am stumped on one part of this solution on my current cube. I have a piece that is in the right spot, but is backwards of what it should be.  I can't seem to figure out how to not ruin everything else and still solve this.

Anyone have any thoughts?

[jeaysm]

If it's one of the first three pieces (in the first part) then just move it to the BR spot and put it back in the correct location but oriented correctly this time. If you have ALL 12 edge pieces of the cube solved correctly except for one piece, which is in the right place and needs to be oriented differently, then your cube is unsolvable and needs to be taken apart and reassembled correctly.

[dansplace1]

Step 4 will not play all the way through. Can you fix that please and thanks for the help!

[jeaysm]

It works fine for me. Try reloading the page, sometimes YouTube is a bit glitchy.

[felocin]

Where are these "bullet points" you speak of because my "memorize" section is different that yours? so the move your useing isn't working for me.

[jeaysm]

If you go to the link in the sidebar there are four bullet points at the bottom of the section explaining the four different possibilities.

[inthe95]

I'm stuck on step 4. Looking at the cube. I have two edge pieces that I'm trying to solve.  The instructions are great but just having a hard time with the edge pieces.

[miss2ghetto]

wait nevermind i got it, lol

[miss2ghetto]

There are other scenarios in the second part of this step, but they are not explained on ur website.

[miss2ghetto]

nevermind, i got it now, thank you

[miss2ghetto]

can u clarify on this 1, i dont know how to get the peices in without messing up the other peices i put in

[neozai]

I finished part 1; 3 yellow edgepiece have been solved.

But I cant get part 2 done... My UR needs to switch places with BR. The U side of UR has the same color as the centerpiece of BR, and the B side of BR has the same color as the centerpiece of UR (yellow). They just needs to switch places without scrambling one of the other yellow edge pieces. Please help me.

[jeaysm]

I'm not clear on what you mean here. If you need to swap UR and BR, there are two possibilities: they both need flipping as well (the UR piece has the R face color in its U side) or neither need flipping (the UR piece has the R face color on its R side). If neither of these applies then your cube may have been disassembled.

[neozai]

ha

[TitusRevised]

I can get up to this step very well but once I try to solve the remaining edge peices on this step I usually end up screwing the whole cube up completely...

[jeaysm]

Just make sure you are always using that BR piece from the middle layer. So your moves would be either R'U (or any other U-face move) R, or B U (or any other U-face move) B'. If you have one of the UF, UL or UB pieces in the BR spot then just move it in place with that, otherwise you first have to move one of the three into the BR spot to work with it.

[TitusRevised]

Thanks, I've finally finished this step..onto 5

[worldyum]

I'm confused with part 2. I read the notes but don't quite understand what you mean by...

"If you want to reduce memorization at the expense of some speed, two of these moves suffice. In other words, if you apply all three of these moves in any sequence to an all-edges correct cube, you will get back an all-edges correct cube."

...do that mean regardless of where my final 2 edge pieces are if I do all 3 of those steps, those final two edges will be solved?

[worldyum]

*does* that mean...

[jeaysm]

No. Let's call the three moves from the bullet points A, B and C. It means that if you really need to do move A to solve it, then you could do move B and then move C and that would solve the step. So if you wanted, you could just memorize B and C. If you need the A solution then you do B + C. I'm not recommending this, just pointing it out if people really don't like memorizing moves.

[worldyum]

Any chance there is a consistent method to solving Step 4 part 1, to where the final 2 edges pieces (which would be for part 2) are solved already... which sometimes seems to already happen by chance?

[jeaysm]

That's a terrific question. I don't think you can, but I'm not sure. I've tried playing around with this idea myself a few times, but while the first part of step 4 seems kind of free-form, in reality a lot of your moves are pretty much forced.

I encourage you to play around with this yourself some and if you find anything be sure to let me know!

[KradenEPC]

That being said, I'm a bit confused on this step hehe. I get the second part of this step... one move to solve both remaining edge pieces.

The first part has me stumped though. Can we solve any three edge positions on the top, or is it a specific three? If it is three specific edge positions, can you designate them relative to a cube that has both the bottom layer (with the white pieces) and the middle layer solved? That might be the root of our problems. Thanks :D

[jeaysm]

Yes, if you put the unsolved middle layer edge piece in the BR position, then the first part of the step is for solving UF, UL and UB. Then the second part solves BR and UR both at once. For the first part the idea is to put one of those three edge pieces first in the BR position so you can work with it, then move it to its destination.

[KradenEPC]

I just want to say you are doing such an amazing job explaining such a difficult puzzle to the masses. Rubik's Cubes are very confusing to beginnners (to me, at least), so don't be discouraged if some people say they don't understand a certain step. I don't think anyone is capable of explaining it any better than you are in these vids, and I for one am progressing quite quickly. So thanks and keep up the good work! :D

[hatedyetloved17]

I have the one full white side done.. And the middle layers... But for my yellow U layer.. the ones missing from it.. are on the middle upper left... of every bordering side. >.< I can't figure out how to get them up there.... Without completely destroying all of the work I've done.

[steelydaniel]

nevermind

[bltsub]

thx, but ubfortunatly i still dont think i quite understand :S

[steelydaniel]

so at the second part of this step the last 2 pieces are either in the right places but flipped (like you show here), or correctly oriented but in opposite places--can you show that scenario?

[bltsub]

I dont get this one?

[jeaysm]

What's not working? Is it the first part where you put the three edge pieces in place, or the second part where you do a move to fix up the last two?

[ninefin]

Step 4