What do you do with broken pieces?

[GIR3691]

No matter how careful you are, pieces tend to break. They get chewed on by dogs (or small children,) stepped on, snapped in half by overexcited kids, scratched and dented from normal wear and tear. I've got a bunch of pieces, that were either mine or bought second-hand in a used, lot that are damaged to the point of being unusable. Is there any way to put these to use, so they don't just get thrown out? Maybe someone out there makes custom molds, and can melt these down... just to do something with it.

[plums_deify]

ABS can be reused multiple times, if you have the set up for it. So long as you have your set up to melt down the plastic and the molds to create something new, you can inject it quite a few times. Also depends on the color, though--I'm told that white's pretty hard to work with, while darker colors I would think would be best.

Unless you've got the set up, though, or someone you know who has it, you're probably best either throwing the broken brick away or using it a MOC of carnage.

[bluemoose]

I used to be physically incapable of throwing away borked LEGO ... but I've grown out of that now :-D

Anything broken / chewed / badly scratched / badly discolored now goes straight in the trash.

Lightly scratched / lightly discolored bricks get kept in a special drawer of 'scrap' pieces that get used for the inside structure of larger MOCs.

Ian

[Iare Tosevite]

Sometimes you can recycle broken parts.

My Luke sports properly scaled light-saber blade from broken trans yellow antenna. Looks good.

[BigBenKenobi]

I usually don't break pieces, but yes, it sometimes happens...two times in particular for me. For me, I threw away the broken pieces, and because both times I needed the piece to complete sets, I headed over to a privately owned lego store about 10 minutes away from my house. They have tons of replacement pieces there, so all was well. So for me: I throw away the broken piece, and seek a replacement.

[Solo]

I grind them up and bleach them, then sell them to depraved AFOLs like Pepa Quin. that''s how he gets that "master builder" grade high and pumps out models so cool LEGO rips him off.

[Jay]

Interesting question. In my opinion cracked or broken pieces are useless with the exception of minifig parts. They usually end up in the trash.

[GIR3691]

Sometimes you can recycle broken parts.

My Luke sports properly scaled light-saber blade from broken trans yellow antenna. Looks good.

That's the thing, I always hold onto them in case I can recycle them as something else.

[Daz Hoo]

Personally, it depends on the damage a piece has sustained, if a spare can be easely found or purchased, and if I can re-use the damage piece in another way.

I frequently use discolored pieces, so I always keep those. Lire Iare, I too have used broken antennas as lightsaber blades. I've also glued back a few pieces together, like small corners of baseplates that were broken off, since they will be covered by other bricks in the building process. But I did throw away some pieces that were just too badly damaged to be used for anything. It broke my heart every time...

[Draykov]

No matter how careful you are, pieces tend to break.

Not to make a semantic issue of it, but my pieces tend to not break.

Anything broken / chewed / badly scratched / badly discolored now goes straight in the trash.

Yep, that's me too. On the rare occasion that I find a broken part in my horde, I get rid of it. For the longest time, I had a bunch of sprues for old 1x1 round plates...I held onto them for years after I had inherited a friend's old collection. He had a bunch of old "Light and Sound" stuff (which I never had as a kid and wasn't so familiar with), so I wanted to be sure of what they were before I got rid of them. Once I realized they weren't an actual part, I tossed 'em.