Using Kragle for repairs: worked, but also a cautionary tale

[hagridshut]

Was building a MOC and connecting a 2-Finger Hinge Plate to its counterpart Hinge Plate 1 x 2 with 3 Fingers, when one of the outboard fingers on the 3-Finger part snapped off.  The piece was probably 25-30 years old, so I wasn't surprised that it had become brittle.  No big deal, I thought.  This is a common part.  Digging through my Lego bins, I was sadly unable to find a 3-Finger Hinge Plate with a color matching the broken piece. 

No big deal, I thought.  I'll just buy a new piece.  The Lego website "pick-a-brick" said it wasn't available.  What?  Such a common part not available?  It wasn't until I checked Bricklink that I learned this piece wasn't made after 2006.

So I decided to attempt to Kragle the broken piece back together.  I used tweezers to pick up the broken finger and practiced how I would reconnect the finger with the rest of the plate.  Being satisfied that it was possible to do this, I put one drop of Kragle onto a piece of wax paper, and holding the broken finger with tweezers, dipped the broken end into the drop, picking up only a miniscule bit of adhesive on the rough edge.  

Reconnecting the finger to the hinge plate didn't go perfectly.  Although I made the connection mostly accurately, the tiny bit of Kragle had more volume than I expected, causing the piece to ultimately land slightly off angle when I pushed the broken parts of the piece together.  A tiny bit of Kragle also beaded out of the reconnected area.  The adhesive set so quickly that I was unable to make any adjustments.

Kragle cures in about 2 minutes, according to the manufacturer.  I waited an hour and then connected the "Kragled" 3-Finger Hinge Plate to the 2-Finger Hinge Plate.  Amazingly, it works and the repair is impossible to see unless one looks closely (the off-angle connection and slight excess adhesive are visible at close range).  

I concluded that Kragle repairs can work, but learned the following things:

•  I needed less adhesive than even the tiny bit I thought I needed.
•  Kragle sets so quickly that it is not a great tool for repair if one can't be reasonably sure of making the right connection between broken parts of a piece on the first try.
•  Kragle in The Lego Movie would have been impractical for a large-scale collector (like the Will Ferrell "Dad" character) to use.  The additional mass of the adhesive changes how things fit together.  Dealing with extra residue would be a problem.  The fumes are awful. 

Edited August 25, 2019 by hagridshut
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