Well my smaz 3x3x5 cuboid arrived yesterday (thanks Smaz!), and my daughter made 4 moves on it and came in to show me with delight what an amazing shape it had made and I said "Can you get it back" and she said "Yeah! Of course I can!" and then a minute or two later I heard crying and I knew what had happened.

I have no idea how to return one of these types of puzzles to a cuboid shape. What are the general principles for getting one of these things to cuboid? At present I'm just doing random turns and I'd like to know how to think about this. Maybe then I can think about solving it.

Thanks

You should think of it like an extended 3x3x3. You can just use any normal 3x3x3 solving method to get it back in shape.

What's an extended 3x3x3? Or what I mean is, how do you go about doing that? I look at the cuboid now and I can't see how my normal methods would work. (EPS and CPS)

Check this series out. It goes through much of the concepts of cuboid strategy. Part 4 uses the 2x2x4 and 3x3x5 for illustration, so you can jump to that one directly as it demonstrates returning the 3x3x5 to the cuboid form:
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGSyxhbRilY
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Lh7eN0xFo
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQh4Ud8TCKo
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALd5KiJV4jQ
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlMTl2c1elI
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yvi1pX7zPc
See if it helps!

Thanks Doctor. Well I watched part 4, and came to a new appreciation of Burgo's videos. This guy goes way too fast for a mortal like me, and he makes comments like "This is all just kind of intuitive...No need to get into the details of it...I can let you just figure it out for yourself." Hang on? Isn't that the point of a video? To help people figure out what they can't?

(I really hope this guy isn't you! My apologies if it is...)

Thanks anyway.

Burgo...where are you?

The "core" of your 3x3x5 is just a 3x3x3 with two extra layers added to it. You can treat this "core" 3x3x3 just like any other 3x3x3 and solve it the same way. This will restore the shape and leave you with only the two added outside layers to solve.

Aaah. Thankyou Volitar. An aha moment for me. I was thinking that you had to restore it to a cuboid shape with any pieces anywhere, but I see now that each piece has exactly its correct position. I hadn't seen that before.

It's now solved.

Many thanks