I just posted last week about some fancy edge insertion techniques I had learned. With those down, I realized that I was missing a good algorithm for addressing edges placed in the correct F2L slot but flipped. I finally came across this one, which works fantastically:
r (R U R’ U’) r’ U2 (R U R U’ R2)
I’ve got it down to about 2 seconds now, as shown in this quick video:
I previously had used (R U’ R’) d (R’ U2 R) U2′ (R’ U R) for edge flips. For two reasons I prefer the new algorithm: First, it’s faster and easier (for me). Second, it preserves the orientation and placement of the top layer corners. Compare the results of the two performed on a solved cube (masked for OLL):
(R U’ R’) d (R’ U2 R) U2′ (R’ U R) |
r (R U R’ U’) r’ U2 (R U R U’ R2) |
Not that I do COLL or anything like that. But, for something as simple as an edge flip, surgical just seems better than shotgun. That said, I do suppose with solid look-ahead one could purposely employ the corner-flipping algorithm to make OLL easier in certain cases….
adventures in cubing 
what is little r & x
If you add U2 at the end you will see that this alg actually flips 2 edges: FR (as on images) plus FU. Nice tutorial anyway. Thanks!
Ri,u,fi,ui
Hi there, I quite like this alg although after trying it for a while I think I prefer ending it with R’2 instead of R2 as this removes the final regrip. The (R U R U’) leaves my hands in the perfect position for R’2