Hello,

I've got a question… The X-wing in my starter pack has one crooked gun out of the package. I can't bend it straight, as I fear it might snap off. Is this a something that happens a lot? It's not gamebreaking or anything, but since the miniatures look so great, I'm just bummed out one turned out like this.

Three out of my four x wings have a crooked engine. I thought about warming up the plastic to bend them into place but I don't know if it would ruin the plastic and yeah, the minis are too expensive to tinker with. I would be so mad at myself if I ended up melting one of my x wings and had to play with a Sloth looking Goonie xwing. Red Squadron Pilot love Chunk.

If we could find out what type of glue was used, it might be possible to remove it and take the crooked parts off and re attach them. I have some that aren't terribly straight, but none like that. I sympathize. I've kicked around the idea of trying some super glue remover just to see what happens.

Nail polish remover helps soften super glue. I'm not sure if it will work here though. Since it is the lower gun you should be able to try it without too much risk.

i forced mine and snaped my engines and guns off. its not that hard. than i chiped the old glue of with a knife and glued it back puting small amounts of superglue with a toothpick to glue then back.

Yeah agree with Gabriel. I have broken down and rebuilt every single X Wing I have, bar one (from one of the new production starter boxes) because of crappy builds like yours. I know the X Wing's lasers were supposed to be able to move slightly to converge on a target, but this is ridiculous and some of my X Wings looked awful out of the box. You can do it if you are careful and take your time. I think the older ones were stuck together using superglue, or similar, thats what it feels and looks like when you break them down. I havent tried taking apart my newer production X, but I can see a big difference in quality and I dont need to. The others just looked bad.

I have tried reshaping them using boiling water as well, but it doesnt seem to have much effect. They are made of a very hard styrene (bar the laser barrels) which doesnt bend much even when hot.

So I took the plunge and after a bit of experimenting I found that the styrene is flexible enough to take a fair bit of abuse. Try using a small set of fine pliers to grip the smaller components like the lasers - wrap tape around the ends if you are worried about damaging your ships - but I found that most bits will come off if you are gentle using your fingers or even modelling tweezers -none of mine were hard to actually break down. Once the components are off you can remove any excess glue with a hobby knife or scalpel blade as some of the X's have a lot. The small exhaust piece sticking out back of the engines are usually the biggest problem as you have to be careful not to snap the little nub of plastic that goes into the larger turbine/engine housing at the wing roots. You are best pulling them straight back out of the housing gently. The S Foils can come off too if they arent straight as they simply slide into holes in the main fuselage of the fighter. You can strip the ships right back down to their basic components if you need to. I have had a couple of accidents and broken one or two parts (through own clumsiness rather than anything else) but superglue fixed every issue and I can use a fine micro drill and mini brass rod to pin back even tiny components.

I havent tried stripping paint from the fighters, but from some of the tutorials around on the forums it doesnt look too difficult if you get the right chemical (one of the A Wing repaint threads mentions Winsor & Newton brush cleaner). It might help and attack the superglue. I havent tried superglue remover either so it might attack the paint, maybe someone else can give you advice on the right product to use. But I dont think you will need it.

Good luck.

If your x wings or miniatures come broken or really bent like the one on the pictures you can ask for a replacement here. Ive done it 4 times with 2 x wings with really bent wings and laser cannons, a falcon with a badly glued peg that maked the falcon notbe ablet tostand still and a broken antena and a slave 1 that came without pegs and badly painted and bent. I have +30ships so 4 damaged is not that bad. Use it only if its something important. Dont abuse their generosity people.

I love my X-Wings, but I have to agree with the above, they see to be the easiest to bend or break and the least durable out of all the figurines. It's not really FFG's fault though. They basic design of the X-Wing makes them brittle. Even with the pre-cut foam protectors I feel like I am transporting glass every time I bring them to my local game shop.

LedZep and Rogue, fair comments. I have 5 X's so far, but plan on getting more for larger games. Given the scarcity of X Wing, which has been going on for a while now, I figured it was better to work with what I had rather than wait what seemed like a fair while (months?). It seems like the retailers and stockists were really just reading pigeon entrails when they gave you times for restocks arriving, so I wasnt sure how long I would wait for replacements from FFG.

Besides, I am a competent modeller and was confident I could fix them. I even broke one of the S Foils, through hamfistedness, taking it off the fuselage. But the stuff they used to make the ships glues and repairs really well. For those who aren't so sure of their ability contacting FFG might be better. Their customer service usually seems really good.

I'm not dissing FFG here. I know they have had issues. I accept that a lot of stuff can happen in between making the stuff and it reaching the stores which isnt FFGs fault. But its not the first time I have heard of FFG having supply issues and the QC issues that have surfaced with X Wing are a shame. I love the game and it doesnt necessarily detract from the experience for me, but it might for others.

Rogue: I have found my X's are a lot tougher than they look. I really havent had any issues to date. I know what you mean about transporting them, its an eternal fear with any kind of mini; that one bit or another will break off. But even after a lot of games, transport, packing and repacking and normal handling (and being flown around the room to sound effects ) I cant even tell which of my X's I broke the wing off. All the remodeling jobs suffered a little paint loss and they suffer from the old build heavy handed paint job - I still might strip and repaint them. I was more worried about the TIEs to be honest and I have even taken off a few TIE wings and reglued those with no problems either. I think they are a lot tougher than we think, that styrene is rock hard and very resilient. Making the X's laser barrels as flexible as they did was probably a real smart move.

phocion said:

It's reassuring to know that other people have had mishaps with their minis and have been able to repair them with ease. By no means am I going to handle them roughly, but I do appreciate the feedback and experience. I have pretty good access to a lot of different industrial strength adhesives where I work so hopefully if anything does happen I can remedy it easily.

I have four plastic Plano storage trays that I keep my X-Wing stuff in. One box each for Rebels, Imperials, templates and tokens, and one to keep the Upgrade cards sorted. My X-Wings (4 of them) are in one of the compartments in the Rebel tray with no foam or padding, but being in the small compartment they can't move around too much. I have yet to have anything broken during a game or transport. They seem to be decently tough for average handling.