Not really a modification or repaint, but this area seemed the most appropriate to ask this question about repairing miniatures.

Does anyone know what type of plastic the ships are made from? Or is it a resin compound? This is important for determining what glues would be best to use when attempting to repair a broken model.

I was given a free 1.0 X-Wing, but it is broken. Looks like someone tried to close the S-Foils only to find out they will not stay open again. I am going to try to fix it before it becomes space debris.

I've had good luck with normal superglue. Fiddly bits might need pinning, the problem is that your average X-Wing model gets a lot of manhandling so you need to be a bit more rigorous than you'd be for a model which is more for display or which will mostly be handled by the base.

I haven't tried Testors-style plastic model cement but X-Wing models don't feel like the right kind of plastic for that.

I'd recommend just going with superglue.

I concur on the super glue.

How broken is it really? Do you happen to have a picture?

Not sure if Cyanoacrylate (Super Glue) wold be the best choice. What is the best glue to use? I was hoping someone already figured that out because there are several factors to consider, but the type of plastic used to make the miniature is an important factor. A good plastic glue might work best because it works by dissolving the plastic which creates the bond.

The breaks are at the wings and body. Like someone trying to close the s-fiols, but they broke instead.

I use Gorilla Glue Super Glue (blue cap). It works well- no dissolving or messing with the paint, dries fairly quickly, and is cheap/readily accessible at many stores rather than requiring a specific trip to a hobby/game store.

I just wanted to post a follow to my original post just in case others might find this helpful when fixing their broken miniatures.

Anyway, I fixed my free X-Wing miniature. Here is a picture of the fixed X-Wing [1.0 pun intended] ?

You can't tell which two s-foils were snapped off! Well, actually you can, but you have to look very close.

I do not know how strong this fix is, but I don't plan on rough play, so it should last forever.

I did not use Cyanoacrylate (Super Glue). Instead I wanted the broken pieces to be "welded" together. I used a glue called TENAX-7R. This stuff worked really good, but you have to be careful when applying the glue to the broken surfaces because the glue can remove the paint.

Looks great!

I recommended Super Glue because it's readily available pretty much everywhere.

I've used this too:

It will fuse the plastic together. (Not all plastics though).

Both of those are just Methyl Ethyl Ketone (MEK; aka Butanone CAS#78-93-3). You can buy it in bulk wherever paint thinners are sold.

The reason they work so well is the fact that MEK actually de-polymerizes the plastic (and can dissolve the paint). The easiest way to think of this is to think of plastic as a woven piece of fabric. If you cut the fabric in half and try to glue it back together you're going to see the seem. But if you re-weave the broken ends together you wont see the seem. This is what MEK does to plastic, the solid plastic is just a bunch of polymer chains ("macromolecules) interconnected through inter-chain bonding. When you apply MEK you unwind the available surface chains and can press 2 pieces of plastic together, in so doing the MEK unwinds both surfaces and (as it dries/evaporates) the polymer chains relink with each other creating a "plastic weld."

[I are chemist.]

MEK is how this:

Became, seamlessly, this:

And eventually this:

Thank God for chemists.

It's the one subject I was absolutely crap at in school.