Another day, another of the little one's things repaired with a hot air tool and a bit of poking.

So many people assume broken plastic is unrepairable garbage because it's hard to glue.

But if it's a thermoplastic, as almost all mass market plastic goods are, all you need to do is gently heat up the pieces until they soften and push them back together to form a solid weld. Filler rod can help in some cases but isn't always necessary or useful depending on the nature of the repair, for flat surfaces I've had decent results just using a screwdriver to lightly press the heat affected zones into each other until they merge.

@azonenberg This works also (with more precision but less weld depth) with a soldering iron set sufficiently low.

@drahflow yeah but no way am i getting random plastic all over my nice Hakko tips.

I much prefer the hot air "torch" technique. If you use filler rod it's pretty similar to oxyacetylene brazing except the rod doesn't fully liquefy and there's no capillary action, it just sticks in place where you placed it

@azonenberg At least LDPE, PLA and ABS seem to leave my tip nicer than before. Then again, I don't solder much and it might well be my inability talking. ^^