What is the Mezzoforte process?
For over a decade now, I've tried to modulate the surface properties of plastic, tuning puzzles in a way that lubricants alone could never achieve.
Thousands of dollars in experiments spread out across the years, and the results were always interesting.
Some processes were too unpredictable, most just had bad results.
Some were temporary and ended up flaking off or wearing off over time.Some were interesting but very tough to produce at scale.
After a few years, I gave up and I left the cube industry to fulfill my dreams as a software engineer.
I never stopped thinking about it -- it was an itch that kept gnawing away at me.
I had to figure out how to create my dream cube.
Another few thousands of dollars later, I think I've finally achieved that fantasy.In 2026, I can now fully modulate the surface properties of puzzles!
Hard or soft? gummy or fast? Completely within my control to change however I want!
This shop seeks to provide these surface modulated cubes to the public.Here are a bunch of technical details:
To fully understand how and why it works, we have to understand surface energy and surface area.
At the molecular level, there are interactions at the electron level that determine how "wettable" a surface is. For example, teflon is highly non-interactive, the electrons don't like to interact, and the surface of teflon is very "low energy". You can observe that when a drop of water falls on teflon, it beads up and does not wet the surface.
On the other hand, things like rust and dirt have a lot of oxygen, which has two lone pairs of electrons per each oxygen. These electrons love to interact, and you can see that water easily wets the dirt. This is an example of "high surface energy"
Plastic and lubricants are no different.
By increasing the surface energy of plastic, it opens up so many new possibilities!
Bonding plastic to plastic is much easier when the substrate has a high surface energy. Silicone based lubricant doesn't just "stick" to this plastic, it "wets" the plastic, and is even absorbed into the top few microns of the plastic.
As for surface area, smooth surfaces have very low surface area, you can basically use euclidean formulas to calculate their surface area. But simply roughen the surface and surface area dramatically increases. By increasing the surface area, you also affect how that surfaces absorb!
The Mezzoforte process does both of these.
It applies a strong surface oxidation, greatly increasing the surface energy. It also creates tiny microscopic pores, far smaller than the eye can see.
Microscope's view of the mezzoforte porous surface:
This microscopically rough surface has a massive increase in surface area, creating an extremely absorbent surface.
Simply using this cube as it is creates a novel experience. The plastic retains lubricant, and is more reactive to the type of lubricant used, since it absorbs into the surface itself. The mechanical properties of the surface also reduce "stiction", which is negligible in cubes, but still an interesting thing to think about.
Modern precision engineering has hand scraped grooves into metal rails, and cars have diagonal scratches embedded into their cylinders.
These outperform smooth surfaces, because we're able to fill those grooves with lubricant and prevent the material to stick with itself.
Perfectly smooth interfaces tend to push lubricant out of the way.
When this concept is done correctly, the points of contact between the surfaces is numerous, has consistent intervals, and holds uniform amounts of lubricant.
Each of these attributes is fully expressed in the surface of the Mezzoforte treated plastic!
Now, the Fortissimo process takes this another step further.
Instead of letting this highly absorbent surface soak up lubricant, let it absorb other materials. We no longer have to worry about coatings coming off over time, since ANY coating will firmly bond to the substrate of the plastic. It doesn't just stick to the surface, the coating become mechanically intertwined into the pores of the base puzzle.
Modulating hardness then becomes trivial, slow and hard plastics are easily bonded to the surface. Coefficients of friction and texture are easily tuned up and down to whatever we want it to be.
There are so many more plastic combinations that I've yet to try.
Thanks for reading, I hope that you will appreciate and enjoy this process that I've been chasing all these years.