Solve Revenge Cube (4x4x4 cube)

Pfeil

Since the 4x4x4 cube can be solved most largely with the same method as the 5x5x5 cube, I won't repeat the whole solution but instead only point to the differences and peculiarities of the 4x4x4 cube compared with the 5x5x5 cube.

Hint:
This solution is made for beginners who want to solve the 4x4x4 cube the first time. If you're already able to solve the 4x4x4 cube and you're searching for a effective and fast method, I recommend to try the Yau method.

Solve side pieces and edge pieces (part 1+2)

The side pieces and edge pieces can be solved the same way as at the 5x5x5 cube. However, when you're solving the 4x4x4 cube there are the following difficulties:

  1. Because of the lack of the center side pieces you can't see at first sight which colours have to be opposite to each other at the solved cube. To find out this you must have a look at the edge pieces: If you want to know which colour has to be opposite to the red side, for example, please look for edge pieces which are red at one side. If you have found edge pieces in the colours red/white, red/yellow, red green and red/blue and the cube consists of the colours red, white, yellow, green, blue and orange, the orange colour is that one which has to be opposite to the red one because this is the only colour which is not adjacent to the red one.
  2. Furthermore it's necessary to know which colour from the last pair of side pieces has to be at which side. Choose any corner and place it in your mind (or in fact) at the matching place. If you find no place where all 3 colours of the corner are matching exactly with the colours of the side pieces, then 2 colours have to change the sides. This can easily be done as shown below:
Applet 1a

At applet 1a you can see that only two colours of the corner red/blue/yellow match with the colours of the side pieces (red and blue) but instead of the yellow side pieces there are the white ones. By the way, it doesn't matter which 2 sides change their places. Instead of white with yellow you could also exchange red with orange or blue with green.
Tip: When you've solved the cube one time, you should memorize the exact position of each colour. Then you don't have to orientate on the side pieces and corners when you solve the cube the next time.

Complete solving the side pieces (part 3)

The concluding solving of the side pieces explained in section 3 of the solution for the 5x5x5 cube can also be done like at the 5x5x5 cube, but since there are much less possibilities how the 4x4x4 cube looks like now (compared with the 5x5x5 cube), I will explain every conceivable possibility in the following.
There are 3 possibilities how the side pieces at one side of the cube can look like:

Since the 3:1 pattern can only be simultaneous at both sides, there are altogether only the following 4 possibilities:

Applet 1b
Applet 1c
Applet 1d
Applet 1e

Applet 1f shows the turn combination of applet 1e with the inter steps which are necessary to avoid mixing up the already ordered edge pieces. The side pieces are mixed up with the last 180° turn but this doesn't matter for the moment. They just have to be moved in the right position for solving of the next two sides.

Applet 1f

Complete solving the cube (part 4)

When you now try to complete solving of the cube, maybe the cube looks like shown in one of the following applets:

Applet 1g
Applet 1h
Applet 1i
Applet 1j

These are peculiarities of the 4x4x4 cube: At the 3x3x3 cube it is impossible that only 1 edge piece is "twisted" wrong (applet 1g) while the others are all twisted right (except that it was taken to pieces and put together wrong). It's also impossible at the 3x3x3 cube that only 2 edge pieces are at the wrong place (applet 1h, 1i). This is not the case for the outer but also for the middle edge pieces of the 5x5x5 cube because they can only be mixed up the same way as at the 3x3x3 cube. Therefore you can orientate on the middle edge pieces when you're solving the edges of the 5x5x5 cube to be sure that all edge pieces are twisted right. At the 4x4x4 cube this is not possible because this cube has an even number of layers and therefore the middle edge pieces are missing. Therefore you can notice whether all edge pieces are twisted right just when you've solved the cube almost complete (at least I know no method to notice this earlier).
To solve the cube when 2 edge pieces are twisted wrong (as shown in applet 1g) you could use the method explained in the solution for the Professor Cube section 2 (applet 2i + applet 2j), but this has the great disadvantage that there are only the edge pieces twisted right but the whole cube is rather in a mess after that. You reach the goal much faster when you use the combination of turns shown in applet 1g. This combination - in contrast to all other combinations on my site - is not thought up by myself but by Frédérick Badie, I have found it on the page of Stefan Pochmann
In the second case (each two edges on the wrong place) please use applet 1h or 1i. At applet 1i first 3 "setup moves" are necessary to place one wrong edge opposite to the other wrong edge to get the same initial state as at applet 1h. Then the identical moves as at applet 1h are following; finally you have to reverse the first 3 setup moves. Applet 1h and 1i are also from the page from Stefan Pochmann.
Depending on which solution you use, it's also possible that there are finally not exactly 2 edges but exactly 2 corners swapped. In this case Applet 1j will help you. Applet 1j consists of 2 parts:
The first 14 turns swap the 2 wrong corners and also 2 edges. All you have to do now is the same as at applet 1h.

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