Repairing extremely tiny plastic pieces (Malifaux mini crossbow)?

[shponglefan]

I love Malifaux minis, but my god they are delicate!

I bought the December Acolytes set, which includes one mini with a teeny-tiny crossbow. Unfortunately, it's so delicate that the bow-string on it actually broke during shipment. Upon unboxing, this is what I found:

The crossbow string measures about 0.28mm in diameter (about 0.01 inches), so it's quite thin. I've thought of a few ways of tackling it including:

1) Attempting to glue it at the broken seam; however, I'm worried about the glue leaving a residue and the piece is far too delicate to sand or file.
2) Removing and replacing the string with something else. Although as per #1, I'm worried about adhesive residue.
3) Removing the string and just leaving it off. Maybe make it look like a magic crossbow that doesn't need a string?
4) Just forgoing the crossbow altogether.

Any ideas?

 

[yxalitis]

Just remove it, it is far too thick, the real string would eb near-invisible at that scale, and most bows in 25mm mins have no string.
Or..

Use some fishing wire, human hair, dog hair, etc instead!

 

[Yuggoth]

I have to disagree. Unlike most bowstrings crossbow strings can be quite thick indeed depending on intended use, period and construction type. I would try glueing first. If that fails you could still try other options. Just don`t use the glue directly from the tube when glueing something so small. Put a drop onto a sheet of pvc or similar and transfer it from there with a needle or toothpick. Use tweezers to correct. When files are not an option I have had good results with very carefully slicing dried residue of with a fresh surgical scapel blade.

 

[me_in_japan]

bit of both, maybe. Try gluing it with a teeny tiny bit of poly cement and holding it while it dries. Once dry, shave off teeeeny slivers with a very sharp knife. If you screw up and cut the string, proceed to plan B and remove the string completely and replace with a real hair.

 

[yxalitis]

I have to disagree. Unlike most bowstrings crossbow strings can be quite thick indeed depending on intended use, period and construction type. I would try glueing first. If that fails you could still try other options. Just don`t use the glue directly from the tube when glueing something so small. Put a drop onto a sheet of pvc or similar and transfer it from there with a needle or toothpick. Use tweezers to correct. When files are not an option I have had good results with very carefully slicing dried residue of with a fresh surgical scapel blade.

Yes, some ancient crossbows had very thick drawstrings:

BUT
1. Looking right trumps historical accuracy, such a thick drawstring looks bad and wrong, regardless of the facts!
This hobby is resplendent with things that are technically wrong, impossible, or improbable, but "look good" (6 limbed dragons, claws on the mid point of a wing-arm etc, massive unwieldy weapons, etc)
2. Even with the above caveat, that drawstring is nearly as thick as the quarrel!

 

[shponglefan]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. Initially I was going to try to glue it. But after removing the crossbow from the sprue and starting to work with it, the other side broke as well! It came apart at the seam (you can see the seam in the pic I originally posted). This is a pretty big design flaw for this particular mini, IMHO.

At any rate, I think now I'm just going to remove the strings altogether.