Ben Ryves posts how to fix those pesky buttons and other plastic parts where the retaining peg has snapped off.

It’s not uncommon for parts of old electronic devices to have damaged plastic pegs, like the one in the photo above.

If you still have the snapped off plastic peg you may be able to glue it back on, but this can leave a weakened part that doesn’t hold up very well. In other cases you might have lost the part entirely. This happened to me recently with the purchase of a six-button Mega Drive control pad… Unfortunately, it arrived in a filthy condition with a d-pad that only worked if you pressed the buttons very firmly and a non-functioning Mode button.

The pressure had snapped one of the plastic pegs of the Mode button off and it was nowhere to be found, so a replacement was needed.

Fortunately, Ben had some scrap plastic parts from cutting out holes in plastic enclosures. A new peg was needed that was 1.8mm in diameter. A piece of paper clip is ingeniously used to join a new carefully machined pin to the existing button.

See the full post on a step by step on how the repair was made.