diff --git a/Rakefile b/Rakefile
index da65fc4..db6a1a0 100644
--- a/Rakefile
+++ b/Rakefile
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ RSpec::Core::RakeTask.new(:spec)
 V8_Version = Libv8::VERSION.gsub(/\.\d$/,'')
 V8_Source = File.expand_path '../vendor/v8', __FILE__
 
+desc "setup the vendored v8 source to correspond to the libv8 gem version and prepare deps"
 task :checkout do
   sh "git submodule update --init"
   Dir.chdir(V8_Source) do
@@ -16,7 +17,14 @@ task :checkout do
   end
 end
 
+desc "compile v8 via the ruby extension mechanism"
 task :compile do
+  sh "ruby ext/libv8/extconf.rb"
+end
+
+
+desc "manually invoke the GYP compile. Useful for seeing debug output"
+task :manual_compile do
   Dir.chdir(V8_Source) do
     puts "compiling libv8"
     sh "make native GYP_GENERATORS=make"
@@ -41,6 +49,7 @@ end
 desc "clean up artifacts of the build"
 task :clean do
   sh "rm -rf pkg"
+  sh "git clean -df"
   sh "cd #{V8_Source} && git clean -dxf"
 end
 
diff --git a/ext/libv8/extconf.rb b/ext/libv8/extconf.rb
index 7400f3e..1232e00 100644
--- a/ext/libv8/extconf.rb
+++ b/ext/libv8/extconf.rb
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 require 'mkmf'
-require 'pathname'
 create_makefile('libv8')
 
 Dir.chdir(File.expand_path '../../../vendor/v8', __FILE__) do
diff --git a/lib/libv8.rb b/lib/libv8.rb
index d46ab8c..0a7657b 100644
--- a/lib/libv8.rb
+++ b/lib/libv8.rb
@@ -1,5 +1,3 @@
-require 'pathname'
-
 require 'libv8/version'
 
 module Libv8
@@ -7,7 +5,12 @@ module Libv8
   module_function
 
   def libv8(name)
-    File.expand_path "../../vendor/v8/out/native/libv8_#{name}.a", __FILE__
+    path = File.expand_path "../../vendor/v8/out/native/libv8_#{name}.a", __FILE__
+    if File.exists? path
+      path
+    else
+      File.expand_path "../../vendor/v8/out/native/obj.target/tools/gyp/libv8_#{name}.a", __FILE__
+    end
   end
 
   def libv8_base