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Skewb · Beginner
Sarah's Beginner Variation: four steps and two short algorithms. A first solve, about 2 to 5 minutes.
The structure of these guides follows Sarah's Skewb method (sarah.cubing.net/skewb/my-method, read October 2026). The sledgehammer and hedgeslammer claims were checked in a simulator (cubing.js). The other sequences are written as that page gives them and are only checked to be legal Skewb moves.
The puzzle
The Skewb is a cube that turns around its corners. It has six centres and eight corners, and no edges. A turn is a third of a full turn around one corner, and it moves half the puzzle. Moves are named by the corner they turn around: R, U, L and B, with a prime for the other direction.
Because there are no edges, the corners and centres do all the work, and the centres can be turned as well as moved. A centre is not solved until its colour is the right way round and in the right place.
R U L B — four corner turns1. Solve the first side
Make one side: four corners around a centre. This step is mostly intuitive. Sometimes the last corner will only go in if you take a solved corner out first. Sarah's page gives two short algorithms for that, L F' L' and R' F R, depending on where the corner is.
L F' L' — one way to bring in the last corner of the first sideR' F R — the other position2. Solve the other corners
Now place the four corners of the opposite side. Two cases come up, and each is fixed with a four-move algorithm. They are built from the two moves below.
The two algorithms
Almost everything in this method uses the sledgehammer and the hedgeslammer. In the simulator, the sledgehammer swaps two pairs of corners and cycles three centres. The hedgeslammer does exactly the opposite: doing one and then the other returns the puzzle to where it started. That makes the hedgeslammer your undo for the sledgehammer.
R' F R F' — SledgehammerF R' F' R — Hedgeslammer, the inverse of the sledgehammer3. Solve the centres
Last, fix the centres. Sarah's page solves the top centre first, then the remaining centres, using the same two algorithms after turning the whole puzzle so the case matches one of the pictures.