They are almost certainly knock offs, please don't link to things you believe are knock offs, we don't advocate piracy on dakka. You probably weren't advocating it either, just curious about it, but still. motyak
Most likely knock offs, but they look so legit and cheap. Take the chance?
I haven't bought from this particular ebayer before, but I have gotten several *ahem* "special" casts from sellers based in Russia and China before and they have surprisingly good quality sculpts. My current Forgeworld Ork Warbiker Boss and several of the DKoK kits I bought for my friend came from these casters from China/Russia and they've been great.
If you are curious, what I did was buy the lowest priced (typically single) option they had that I was interested in as a sort of test. If all goes well then you can try to invest in more extravagant units. But by and large most of them do deliver, just make sure you check the volume they've actually sold/amount of positive feedback as usual.
One thing you do have to keep in mind is that it takes a long time for it to arrive given where they're coming from, especially China. So there is the risk that it can take longer than 3 weeks to get to you.
As with anything, check the past listings and customer feedback.
I would say most recasters, and this is definitely a recast, aren't actually trying to scam you. They're selling actual product. Quality may vary, but often the casts are just as good as forge world. Do a test purchase if you feel game to check the seller out and if its legit then buy what you want.
A lot of the recasters will get you noticably better quality than forgeworld, for a fraction of the cost. Their ranks have been thinning lately, though.
The time where recasters were mostly scammers is long over. Recasters now, mostly, offer premium products and a very low price. Sadly, the quality often is even better than the original.
Just a word of warning, China doesn't have as many safety regulations like most other countries; Your major concern should be, what is the materials to make these?; It could be something very toxic and make lead of years past look like nothing. Add on top of a guy working out of his garage using what he has on hand; Might end up in the hospital and loose a few fingers from a cheap miniature.
Genoside07 wrote: Just a word of warning, China doesn't have as many safety regulations like most other countries; Your major concern should be, what is the materials to make these?; It could be something very toxic and make lead of years past look like nothing. Add on top of a guy working out of his garage using what he has on hand; Might end up in the hospital and loose a few fingers from a cheap miniature.
If I recall correctly, Russian recasters employ plutonium for metal models.
Most recasters use resin anyway, from low quality greyish color (cheapest recasters) to mid-high quality beige-whiteish color. The last ones tend to be more expensive but still half the price of what Forgeworld asks, and (usually) higher quality than FW.
Genoside07 wrote: Just a word of warning, China doesn't have as many safety regulations like most other countries; Your major concern should be, what is the materials to make these?; It could be something very toxic and make lead of years past look like nothing. Add on top of a guy working out of his garage using what he has on hand; Might end up in the hospital and loose a few fingers from a cheap miniature.
Or, by applying Occam's Razor, it could simply be resin. Resin is not expensive, there is little room for using some cheap, more toxic, alternative, plus it is poor business practice to kill your customers.
Frankly the whole "Chinese recasts will poison you" thing, and I'm not specifically attacking you, it is something that gets brought up every time this subject gets broached, more or less, smacks of a scare story trotted out by the uninformed and those with a vested interest.
I'm not gonna warn you about scary poisonous resin.
However, Forgeworld does have excellent customer service. If you buy a recast, you might well get something that is 'superior to the original product'. You might also get something that is miscast, or something mispacked, or something broken in shipment. Even the finest recaster in all the land doesn't control UPS tossing your product into the truck.
If something happens with a FW product from FW, those guys are great about handling it (in my experience). If you get a deal on a recast, and something is broken, you might be SOL.
Having said that, Forgeworld does have models that have gone out of production. If I could find someone who would cast me one model that I never got from FW....
timetowaste85 wrote: I still had the link saved from last night. All the models are gone. He has two items, one is a set of clippers. Nothing more to see there.
GW has been on a major IP rampage recently and the above is a likely result. Most if not all of the Chinese recasters have taken down their product pages in the last month or so.
timetowaste85 wrote: I still had the link saved from last night. All the models are gone. He has two items, one is a set of clippers. Nothing more to see there.
GW has been on a major IP rampage recently and the above is a likely result. Most if not all of the Chinese recasters have taken down their product pages in the last month or so.
They've also just modified their username with a number and put it all right up again, it seems!
I have also... ahem.... partaken of the china resin, just to try it out. Have to say I have been slightly impressed. I have 3 stores that I frequent and trust.... and I dare say that their resin quality is BETTER than that of forgeworld :/
But then comes the morality issue... but meh... free market and blah
If you weren't going to buy it from Forge World because it was too expensive no one wins. You don't get a model and Forge World doesn't get any money. That is their fault.
So if a third party comes along and offers the same product at a lesser cost which is within your budget its not really your problem. You get what you want and the third party gets your money.
The moral issue is on the caster not the buyer and that's for Games Workshop to pursue. Knowing them they absolutely will, and that's fine. The caster knows the risks of unlicensed production.
Sigvatr wrote: I don't have any morality issue with a company over-charging by such a ridiculous amount
Well that's just a sad comment on the state of your morals then.
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Col. Tartleton wrote: So if a third party comes along and offers the same product at a lesser cost which is within your budget its not really your problem. You get what you want and the third party gets your money.
Only if you have no problem with "if a company charges too much for something I want then I'm entitled to obtain it by illegal methods". A more reasonable person would just concede that if they can't afford something they want they aren't going have it.
If the miniatures cost more than you are willing to pay then buy less, buy second hand or play another game that is cheaper.
If 'pre-heresy' is your thing, I and many other people were making our own 5-6 years ago from conversions on GW's existing plastic ranges. Make some effort!
As much as I dislike GW's business practices in some regards, I would never countenance knowingly buying counterfeit goods. Remember that there are people with jobs and families behind the corporate symbol that stand to lose out from this, and if you support the re-casters they get bigger and expand their ranges, which makes it a vicious circle and one that potentially damages the whole industry, not just GW.
I don't think 'free market' stretches to people recasting and passing their copies off as the real thing. Free market is what companies producing alternative product do (like CHS or Kromlech), chinese reacasters are just ripping stuff off. It's really up to GW to charge what they like for their own sculpts however wrongheaded you think their pricing structure is.
I doubt recasters are claiming their product is the real thing. They're just saying they're selling a model for X, which is truthful statement.
Many of them aren't exactly hiding the fact they're recasts. Its not really comparable with some actual Knock-off products like counterfeit designer Jackets or Purses.
Col. Tartleton wrote: If you weren't going to buy it from Forge World because it was too expensive no one wins. You don't get a model and Forge World doesn't get any money. That is their fault.
So if a third party comes along and offers the same product at a lesser cost which is within your budget its not really your problem. You get what you want and the third party gets your money.
Except they never would've had a product to sell if they hadn't stolen the design from Forge World.
It's not 'free market' competition when the whole business model is recasting.
Col. Tartleton wrote: If you weren't going to buy it from Forge World because it was too expensive no one wins. You don't get a model and Forge World doesn't get any money. That is their fault.
So if a third party comes along and offers the same product at a lesser cost which is within your budget its not really your problem. You get what you want and the third party gets your money.
Except they never would've had a product to sell if they hadn't stolen the design from Forge World.
It's not 'free market' competition when the whole business model is recasting.
Actually its exactly Free market. In a true free market there are no IP protections and everyone is free to copy other people. There are no regulations regarding the theft of ideas.
By the same logic quoting a passage from a book you didn't write without permission should be illegal even if you properly cite it.
What if I want my Games Workshop models cast in pewter for my own personal use? They don't offer me the models in metal but I have the capability to do it myself. So naturally I buy a box of Witch Elves for $60 just like they ask and then I make a mold of the sprue and pour pewter. If I make a single cast of a tank in resin to chop up for terrain is that fine? What about two? Ten? A hundred? When does it become a crime?
Its just the state enforcing artificial restrictions on efficient businesses to protect inefficient businesses at the expense of the consumer and to the benefit of the overpaid executives. Whether its beneficial long term or not for non essential industries like toys to get these sort of intellectual protections is up for debate. What isn't up for debate is the fact legality and morality are not intrinsically synonymous.
Col. Tartleton wrote: By the same logic quoting a passage from a book you didn't write without permission should be illegal even if you properly cite it.
What if I want my Games Workshop models cast in pewter for my own personal use? They don't offer me the models in metal but I have the capability to do it myself. So naturally I buy a box of Witch Elves for $60 just like they ask and then I make a mold of the sprue and pour pewter. If I make a single cast of a tank in resin to chop up for terrain is that fine? What about two? Ten? A hundred? When does it become a crime?
Its just the state enforcing artificial restrictions on efficient businesses to protect inefficient businesses at the expense of the consumer and to the benefit of the overpaid executives. Whether its beneficial long term or not for non essential industries like toys to get these sort of intellectual protections is up for debate. What isn't up for debate is the fact legality and morality are not intrinsically synonymous.
No, you're neither stealing or a criminal.
As I seem to post on a regular basis -
Recasting is not a criminal act, it is IP infringement and therefore a civil matter, and it isn't stealing as that requires an involved party to have their property taken without permission, whereas I assume, in most cases, the 'master' is obtained legitimately.
Neither is it counterfeiting unless they are sold as original and for a comparable price to RRP, as counterfeiting has a crucial element with regard to intent to deceive.
From a legal standpoint, I've never managed to find anything to suggest that purchasing them is illegal in any of the countries most commonly represented on Dakka, or at the very least only breaks a "minor" law that is unlikely to attract the attention of enforcement at the scale a typical hobbyist would be likely involved.
In reality, it all boils down to personal morality, and whether an individual feels it is wrong enough to pass up the opportunity to save significant sums.
Without getting into the legal side of what constitutes 'fair use', morally there's a clear difference between recasting for your own private use and recasting in bulk to sell on and undercut the manufacturer.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Purchasing counterfeit goods isn't entitely legal because Customs will seize and destroy them if they spot them. I doubt GW recasts would be spotted but if they were then there's a good chance you will lose them and you'll have little recourse.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I don't think 'free market' stretches to people recasting and passing their copies off as the real thing.
As far as my experience does, they (almost) never do.
In fact, they usually go out of their way to point out they're selling replicas and if you want the "real" product for the full prize, you should buy the official product.
That's why it doesn't count as counterfeiting, despite what the most ardent GW supporters will claim in each and every one of this kind of threads.
Howard A Treesong wrote: Without getting into the legal side of what constitutes 'fair use', morally there's a clear difference between recasting for your own private use and recasting in bulk to sell on and undercut the manufacturer.
I agree completely. It's like the guy who in the P&M section who was re-casting some of the X-Wing ships, but was doing so quite roughly just using one of those jelly-cast things, and then using the results for a debris field of smashed up old ships.
I don't think most people would resent or have trouble with that. But, casting up copies and selling them in quantity is an entirely different issue.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I don't think 'free market' stretches to people recasting and passing their copies off as the real thing.
As far as my experience does, they (almost) never do.
In fact, they usually go out of their way to point out they're selling replicas and if you want the "real" product for the full prize, you should buy the official product.
That's why it doesn't count as counterfeiting, despite what the most ardent GW supporters will claim in each and every one of this kind of threads.
I'm not a GW supporter of any sort, and I don't think the 'replicas not counterfeits' argument if going to fly for any meaningful purpose when it's just recasting someone else's product.
Col. Tartleton wrote: By the same logic quoting a passage from a book you didn't write without permission should be illegal even if you properly cite it.
Actually it can be. There's a "fair use" exemption to allow limited quoting in certain situations, but there's no blanket rule that says "if you cite it you're ok".
What if I want my Games Workshop models cast in pewter for my own personal use?
Then too bad. You don't always get what you want.
Its just the state enforcing artificial restrictions on efficient businesses to protect inefficient businesses at the expense of the consumer and to the benefit of the overpaid executives.
No, it's simple recognition of the fact that investing in new IP requires protection for that investment. It will always cost more to create new IP than to copy existing work (literal copying in the case of recasters or digital piracy, not just stealing general ideas), so a dishonest company will always be able to steal that IP and create cheaper products. If you remove IP protection and allow anyone to legally sell copies of anything they want then why would anyone have an incentive to create new IP?
What if I want my Games Workshop models cast in pewter for my own personal use?
Then too bad. You don't always get what you want.
Out of interest Peregrine, what did you think of copying your music onto cassette tapes back in the day, or copying onto a CD so you could have a separate copy for the car?
I see it as a clear denigration between copying for personal use, and copying to sell. I know both can technically be 'illegal' in the eyes of the law, but I mean in terms of how people view something as morally acceptable or not.
Pacific wrote: I see it as a clear denigration between copying for personal use, and copying to sell. I know both can technically be 'illegal' in the eyes of the law, but I mean in terms of how people view something as morally acceptable or not.
Sure, and I'm not saying you should be thrown in prison for the rest of your life if you copy something for personal use in a different format*. My objection is to this apparent assumption that if you want X and can't get it legally then you're entitled to do whatever it takes to get X some other way. And not having X just isn't an acceptable answer.
*Note that this is different from recasting something for personal use because you don't want to buy multiple copies of it, which I don't approve of at all.
Of course, the obvious counter to that is if item X is available at price A which is higher than I'm willing to pay (regardless of affordability,) and also at the much lower price B, and I'm not breaking any laws by purchasing item X at price B, why the hell would I pay price A?
Azreal13 wrote: Of course, the obvious counter to that is if item X is available at price A which is higher than I'm willing to pay (regardless of affordability,) and also at the much lower price B, and I'm not breaking any laws by purchasing item X at price B, why the hell would I pay price A?
Because you have moral standards beyond "I'm not going to be arrested for this"?
Azreal13 wrote: Of course, the obvious counter to that is if item X is available at price A which is higher than I'm willing to pay (regardless of affordability,) and also at the much lower price B, and I'm not breaking any laws by purchasing item X at price B, why the hell would I pay price A?
No real argument against, as long as you're fine with helping out people who are dodgy.
I have a couple of recast parts acquired in swaps etc, they don't keep me awake at night. But I'm well aware that supporting people who rip off IP is not morally good. Morally grey, yes.
People selling recasts are not helping out those who are short of money, they're simply parasitical.
Azreal13 wrote: Of course, the obvious counter to that is if item X is available at price A which is higher than I'm willing to pay (regardless of affordability,) and also at the much lower price B, and I'm not breaking any laws by purchasing item X at price B, why the hell would I pay price A?
Because you have moral standards beyond "I'm not going to be arrested for this"?
Not in this context, no.
But then, it's been established in the past you don't deal well outside of binary arguments, so any sort of discussion with you on this subject has no point.
Azreal13 wrote: Of course, the obvious counter to that is if item X is available at price A which is higher than I'm willing to pay (regardless of affordability,) and also at the much lower price B, and I'm not breaking any laws by purchasing item X at price B, why the hell would I pay price A?
No real argument against, as long as you're fine with helping out people who are dodgy.
Citation needed.
If someone recasts because they need to supplement a poor income, or to earn an income altogether, and conducts themselves in business in an honest fashion, and has been raised in a culture where this sort of behaviour is considered normal, how are they dodgy?
I'm not saying it's impossible that they're dodgy, but I think that you need to support that assumption with some facts.
If someone recasts because they need to supplement a poor income, or to earn an income altogether, and conducts themselves in business in an honest fashion, and has been raised in a culture where this sort of behaviour is considered normal, how are they dodgy?
I'm not saying it's impossible that they're dodgy, but I think that you need to support that assumption with some facts.
Committing a minor crime because you're short of money doesn't absolve you. IP theft is IP theft, recognised in all the major legal systems worldwide, including PRC.
.As we have seen so many times, you seem fine with people stealing GW's IP because you don't like GW. I doubt there's one recaster, anywhere, who isn't aware of exactly what they are doing. Yes, they can get away with it in a largely corrupt system, doesn't make it OK.
If you're claiming they're all Robin Hoods, trying to feed their downtrodden family, from a culture where all property is theft, please provide a citation as it will be entertaining.
I don't particularly like GW, but even stealing from someone we don't like doesn't mean it's not IP theft. Which is a crime - however you frame it.
Just as a side note, providing false testimony under oath in a trial is also a crime. It seems the almighty GW is not beyond that when they want to go against third party manufacturers.
Regarding "dodgy" practices, let's not even get started on that.
And by the way, I'm not trying to use the "stealing from thieves is ok" argument here, it's just people are being told to uphold some "moral standards" by not buying recasted products originally designed by a company which has repeatedly proven to not abide to any kind of moral or ethical standards beyond "I do as I like".
GW is simply reaping what they have beein sowing for years.
Azreal13 wrote: Of course, the obvious counter to that is if item X is available at price A which is higher than I'm willing to pay (regardless of affordability,) and also at the much lower price B, and I'm not breaking any laws by purchasing item X at price B, why the hell would I pay price A?
So I suppose you're going to claim that if A were 'low enough,' you'd buy FW then?
Are you lying to us, or yourself?
Price is A is irrelvant, because B, by its nature, is always going to be cheaper. You will never buy A.
Guys, he just wanted to know if they where recasts, that is all.
Lets leave the Is it wrong/is it right debates to the little devil and angel on our shoulder
If someone recasts because they need to supplement a poor income, or to earn an income altogether, and conducts themselves in business in an honest fashion, and has been raised in a culture where this sort of behaviour is considered normal, how are they dodgy?
I'm not saying it's impossible that they're dodgy, but I think that you need to support that assumption with some facts.
Committing a minor crime because you're short of money doesn't absolve you. IP theft is IP theft, recognised in all the major legal systems worldwide, including PRC.
.As we have seen so many times, you seem fine with people stealing GW's IP because you don't like GW. I doubt there's one recaster, anywhere, who isn't aware of exactly what they are doing. Yes, they can get away with it in a largely corrupt system, doesn't make it OK.
If you're claiming they're all Robin Hoods, trying to feed their downtrodden family, from a culture where all property is theft, please provide a citation as it will be entertaining.
I don't particularly like GW, but even stealing from someone we don't like doesn't mean it's not IP theft. Which is a crime - however you frame it.
No, sorry, you made an assumption based on, apparently, little or no fact and I asked you to back it up. You don't get to ask me to prove the speculation I made which, if true, totally disproves your assumption.
Burden of proof and all that.
Equally "committing a minor crime because you're short of money doesn't absolve you?"
If (and I freely admit this is an assumption, but, hey, it appears we're at a point in the discussion where we aren't bothering supporting things with facts) recasting some toys is the difference between paying the rent or feeding the family and not? Well, I'd absolve them without a second thought, but I guess it's easier to condemn if they're all Triads in neon lit penthouses sat around drinking imported vodka and laughing at how rich we're making them.
You're right I find recaster practices much easier to tolerate because of who they're targeting, but let's not forget GW aren't above playing dirty in that arena either.
Azreal13 wrote: Of course, the obvious counter to that is if item X is available at price A which is higher than I'm willing to pay (regardless of affordability,) and also at the much lower price B, and I'm not breaking any laws by purchasing item X at price B, why the hell would I pay price A?
So I suppose you're going to claim that if A were 'low enough,' you'd buy FW then?
Are you lying to us, or yourself?
Price is A is irrelvant, because B, by its nature, is always going to be cheaper. You will never buy A.
Re-read my post.
I clearly said "if price A is higher than I'm willing to pay" if it wasn't higher than I was willing to pay, or, more pertinently, if it was closer to price B, then absolutely I'd buy real. (You've also made the assumption I don't buy real, remember, this is a discussion not real life.)
Why do you think the likes of Steam and itunes make so much cash when what they sell is freely available? It's because most people, given the opportunity, are prepared to buy genuine if they feel they're getting value, piracy is generally a symptom of a market where the pricing is out of whack with what people are willing to pay, and are sufficiently high that there's headroom for a margin for knock offs.
Sure, there'll always be a few who will pirate regardless, but most people are happy to pay a fair price for fair quality, myself included.
At least you're honest about it. Now we can move to the next step of "I buy recasts because I don't care about anything besides getting a cheaper price" and stop presenting recasts as some kind of moral crusade against GW.
But then, it's been established in the past you don't deal well outside of binary arguments, so any sort of discussion with you on this subject has no point.
Only because you define any situation where I don't agree with your justifications for buying recasts as a "binary argument". The fact that I don't agree with you doesn't mean I have some horrible inability to understand things that aren't black and white, it just means that I think your claim to a gray area is nonsense.
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Korinov wrote: GW is simply reaping what they have beein sowing for years.
So now we get the "GW deserves it" argument? How about, if GW is so horrible that they deserve to be the victim of IP theft and recasting, you just stop buying GW products entirely? Stop buying recasts, stop playing GW games, and support a better company instead.
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Azreal13 wrote: Why do you think the likes of Steam and itunes make so much cash when what they sell is freely available?
Because there are a lot of people who won't pirate stuff at all. They buy legitimately if they want it, and if it's too expensive they just accept that they won't have it.
It's because most people, given the opportunity, are prepared to buy genuine if they feel they're getting value, piracy is generally a symptom of a market where the pricing is out of whack with what people are willing to pay, and are sufficiently high that there's headroom for a margin for knock offs.
No, piracy is a symptom of a market where piracy is easy. If it was all about some kind of moral crusade against high prices then you wouldn't expect to see things like piracy of cheap games by independent developers, music from bands that oppose the RIAA's abuses, etc. Instead virtually everything you could think of pirating is available to download. This pretty strongly suggests that it has very little to do with "fair value" and a lot to do with selfish people who will always pirate if it saves them money.
Sigh. I guess you don't understand the difference between the general "you" and the specific? Whether you personally buy recasts you're still giving the same arguments in defense of doing it that people who buy recasts give.
The Chinese AlieExpres used to have a lot of re-cast stuff but since they went (or want to go?) global most of them have vanished.
The morality of recasting aside, that they are present proofs that GW/FW prices are going into the luxury segment, because you don't see
much fake goods of low end products.
lord_blackfang wrote: I see the "I copy/pasted my moral code from the law book" crowd has found this thread.
Guess what, parroting rules that the rich and powerful put in place to keep everyone in their place doesn't give you any sort of moral high ground.
Is this infantile analysis supposed to be it?
You obviously have a total lack of knowledge of copyright; perhaps you work in an area where your work has no value, so no-one wants to copy it?
As anyone with the most minimal interest in this area knows, the key principles of copyright law were established by artists, back in the 1700s. They freed artists from having to rely on rich patrons, which had previously been the case. Your 'understanding' of how copyright laws were introduced is 100 per cent wrong.
Once again, for those hard of understanding, I actually have a couple of 'dodgy' items so don't claim to be on the moral high ground. But aggrandising recasters ain't sticking it to the man, it's supporting dodgy vendors, who rip off a load off people, as well as the Evil Empire of GW.
Azreal13 wrote: Neither is it counterfeiting unless they are sold as original and for a comparable price to RRP, as counterfeiting has a crucial element with regard to intent to deceive.
Aren't those movies and software burnt to DVD's, labelled with a sharpie and sold on the street considered counterfeit? I don't think you could argue there's any more intent to deceive, no one is going to be fooled in to thinking they've bought a genuine copy of the movie, but I still thought that was considered counterfeiting.
Actually I've lived off of IP money most of my life.
I was also around to see the evolution of digital piracy in its entirety, from copying Commodore-64 tapes onwards, and the concurrent evolution of copyright enforcement at the hands of the very same corporate parasite middle-men whose margins jack up prices so high as to make piracy an attractive option in the first place. I think any artist who sides with 'the man' in this debacle is a complete slow.
Azreal13 wrote: Neither is it counterfeiting unless they are sold as original and for a comparable price to RRP, as counterfeiting has a crucial element with regard to intent to deceive.
Aren't those movies and software burnt to DVD's, labelled with a sharpie and sold on the street considered counterfeit? I don't think you could argue there's any more intent to deceive, no one is going to be fooled in to thinking they've bought a genuine copy of the movie, but I still thought that was considered counterfeiting.
That's Piracy, rather than Counterfeiting, I think. IANAL, but as far as I've been able to tell (and these threads come up often enough that I have spent a few mins looking around) to be actually guilty of counterfeiting, you've got to be explicitly trying to pass the fake off as original.
Which of course doesn't mean you're doing nothing wrong if you're being honest about them being fake, and it doesn't make it wrong to describe them as counterfeit in a broader sense, but, again, AFAICS, to be guilty of the crime of counterfeiting, there must be an intent to deceive the customer.
Anyway piracy is piracy no matter who is the IP owner is and how expensive is the staff he sells. It makes "sense" for the recasters to eyeball companies that have really high prices since it will be easier to find customers for the copied products and also the offered discount will still leave
Listen, at the end of the day we can argue morality all day - this is bad, this is good, blah blah. But at the end of the day it still will happen. People do not want to spend that much money on a good that they feel does not cost it - therefore will look to other vendors to sell it. In this case, yes it does infringe on IP laws, but you cannot shut down an entire business like this. I forgot who said it, but if there is a need for something, someone will supply.
If you want associate it with the drug trade. I remember in the 90's it was al about stop the drug trafficking, stop drug usage, so on and so forth. Now a days it is still being done, albeit probably more secretly, but done nonetheless. I will not sit on a high horse and say "you should never order from these sites" because I have done that as well. I wanted a titan, did not have the money at the time to buy a titan, so I got one off aliexpress. Do I still buy from forgeworld - absolutely, just like I buy every now and then from my LGS instead of of online. But your argument is very flawed, and sadly it can be also be translated into "you should never buy online, you should buy direct from GW to support them."
But again, white-knighting around will solve nothing. If people want, people will get - done, over with, it is that simple.
Bookwrack wrote:Price is A is irrelvant, because B, by its nature, is always going to be cheaper. You will never buy A.
Wrong.
B will only be around as long as it's profitable to recast A, sell it for half (or less) the price and ship it from China to the other end of the world.
If A were cheap enough, nobody would buy B, and thus demand for it wouldn't exist.
You will never, ever see recasts of GW's cheapest kits. Those boxes of 10 plastic infantry models for 21€.
Peregrine wrote:So now we get the "GW deserves it" argument? How about, if GW is so horrible that they deserve to be the victim of IP theft and recasting, you just stop buying GW products entirely? Stop buying recasts, stop playing GW games, and support a better company instead.
GW deserves it for multiple reasons, in fact after what they did in the whole Chapterhouse incident (and what they had planned to do if they had got away with that one) they deserve everything they may get.
But still, as me and others have explained countless times (while some of you blatantly refuse to listen) recasters can have their business rolling because GW actually allows them to do. They exist because GW's pricing policies have been so stupid they've created room in the market for profitable recasters. This is a global economy now, and you simply can't afford these kind of mistakes, specially when you operate in such a niche market.
fidel wrote:People do not want to spend that much money on a good that they feel does not cost it - therefore will look to other vendors to sell it. In this case, yes it does infringe on IP laws, but you cannot shut down an entire business like this. I forgot who said it, but if there is a need for something, someone will supply.
(...)
But your argument is very flawed, and sadly it can be also be translated into "you should never buy online, you should buy direct from GW to support them."
But again, white-knighting around will solve nothing. If people want, people will get - done, over with, it is that simple.
fidel wrote: But again, white-knighting around will solve nothing. If people want, people will get - done, over with, it is that simple.
At the end of the day I don't really care about GW, I simply would rather foster a community attitude that supports gaming by supporting the person who created the art by either agreeing to the terms they set or if you can't deal with that finding another artist that has more agreeable terms.
Buying from recasters does not support the hobby. Don't like what GW are charging and don't like their policies? Fine, buy from one of the plethora of other gaming companies. I have no problem with groups that genuinely produce their own models but rip off other peoples' ideas as that's genuine competition. A company that produces a "not Ragnar Blackmane" that is better than GW's is good for the hobby. But just pure copying isn't competition and isn't good for the hobby, it's leeching.
Of course I don't get my knickers in a twist if someone is going to buy recasts, it's a personal decision someone has to make, I'd just much rather the community as a whole had a mindset of supporting the hobby instead of the self entitled attitude of just getting what they want when they want at the price they want even if it's not from a good source. I'm pretty sure that's part of the reason Dakka has a rule against promoting or encouraging recasts, I'm sure partly because they don't want to get themselves in to legally ambiguous territory but also because they want to foster a community that supports the hobby.
I know it's a cultural thing, but personally I like the fact we live in a culture where an artist can make a living off their work without having to find a wealthy patron to support them, I'd rather it stayed that way.
fidel wrote: . In this case, yes it does infringe on IP laws, but you cannot shut down an entire business like this. I forgot who said it, but if there is a need for something, someone will supply.
I will say that the above is completely correct. The Chinese culture does not put any value on IP. They simply don't believe that you can own an idea. My company has business in China and other Asian countries and we have to be VERY careful about what we share with whom. It sounds like paranoia to some, but when you can walk into a competitor's plant and see something newly installed that is a complete copy of something that you introduced into YOUR plant just a few months before after 3 years of development work and testing, you'll understand.
I will not go into the right or wrong. That's for you to decide.
fidel wrote: . In this case, yes it does infringe on IP laws, but you cannot shut down an entire business like this. I forgot who said it, but if there is a need for something, someone will supply.
I will say that the above is completely correct.
I wouldn't say it's completely correct. You can create laws and then enforce those laws with penalties that dissuade people from doing it. It's simply China does not enforce the laws (even though they do have them). Sure, you might still get some black marketers, but you can kill off a lot of the volume by having laws and penalties that are enforced.
I will not go into the right or wrong. That's for you to decide.
At the end of the day it's a cultural thing... personally I do not find the Chinese knock-off culture an appealing prospect, not just when it comes to miniatures but in general.
The question is, if something is regarded as morally bad in one nation, but perfectly acceptable in another, does that not indicate that it's not a completely clear cut black and white issue?
I'm of the opinion that IP laws are a good thing generally. But I am also of the opinion that they are far too extensive (Mickey Mouse anyone?). But I do not equate laws being a good idea/necessary with being morally right.
As with most such things, there's a certain amount of give and take, and the majority of people will do whatever they want so long as they can sleep at night.
Ketara wrote: The question is, if something is regarded as morally bad in one nation, but perfectly acceptable in another, does that not indicate that it's not a completely clear cut black and white issue?
No, it means we have yet to establish a system of laws and regulations that the entire globe has recognized as fair and balanced. A system whereby disagreements over property, resources, and the best style of Bar-B-Que are settled in giant arenas with men and women piloting 20 meter mechanical beasts. A golden age where this is no war. There is no hunger. There is no strife.
Ketara wrote: The question is, if something is regarded as morally bad in one nation, but perfectly acceptable in another, does that not indicate that it's not a completely clear cut black and white issue?
No, it means we have yet to establish a system of laws and regulations that the entire globe has recognized as fair and balanced. A system whereby disagreements over property, resources, and the best style of Bar-B-Que are settled in giant arenas with men and women piloting 20 meter mechanical beasts. A golden age where this is no war. There is no hunger. There is no strife.
There is only...
HAHAHAHA - that made me laugh greatly thank you.
You are talking about a system that encompasses everyones cultures, institutions, and ideologies equally in a fair and balanced way - good luck. One reason feminism has such a hard time is globalization - a feminist from India has a much different idea on the rights of women than a woman from the United States - is it possible to have laws and regulations that encompass both - possibly (and most likely) never. The same is true about business; essentially, there is no system of laws that will incorporate everything in a fair and balanced way, and there never will be. Human beings live way to different lives for that ever to happen, but the problem also lies in our greed or desire. It has always been the way for humans that if there is a will there is a way.
If I have the desire for models at a cheaper price, someone will capatilize on that desire and produce them. The BEST historical example that comes to mind is prohibition. It was illegal to sell/have alchohol in an establishment - but did that stop anyone, not really.....
What people want, someone will provide, and you will get. This has been our universal law (now that being said there are always exterior forces stopping us - aka a person of color attempting to want equal pay/equal rights and someone passing a law saying it is illegal, but eventually people find a way to circumvent it to get what they want - in this case the civil rights movement )
At the end of the day it's a cultural thing... personally I do not find the Chinese knock-off culture an appealing prospect, not just when it comes to miniatures but in general.
I wonder if a line could be drawn between knock-offs and reproductions in this instance?
My background is in mobile (cell) phones mainly, and over the course of the dozen or so years I sold them, I saw more than a couple of handsets that people had purchased (off EBay mainly) which one could class as a knock off (ie, they were clearly going out of their way to ape the design of a popular handset of the time, Apple or Samsung typically.) These, when compared to the original, were undoubtedly inferior but still often represented good value in terms of what they were and the price paid.
Recasts are, it seems, a different case. People often cite the fact that the quality is equal to or better than original models, and this is for less cash.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Not unless there's some cultural changes, which can happen, I wouldn't be holding my breath though.
I once had it explained to me by someone who had lived in Asia for most of their life (although had been born in the states). To cut a longer explanation short, the way he described it was that all shapes, patterns, ideas exist in nature. At it's simplest, an artist looks at a wave breaking and makes a representation of it. This representation does not belong to the artist, but is something that nature has imprinted onto the perception and thoughts of the artist. While the artist can then represent things in different ways, their 'humours' and what lead them to do something in such a way are themselves are a result of other things happening around them. This then of course could be extrapolated to other forms of art and creativity, music, sculpture etc.
I'm not suggesting for a moment that the people carrying out IP infringement go through this kind of thought process to justify it for themselves, but it's something that I think is engrained in culture and social norms; to put it finely, you don't just have a higher percentage of people breaking the law in China because they are morally repugnant, they genuinely believe there is no issue with it. And this is often what causes such conflict in the business and financial worlds where the two cultures have to try and interact with each other.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Not unless there's some cultural changes, which can happen, I wouldn't be holding my breath though.
I once had it explained to me by someone who had lived in Asia for most of their life (although had been born in the states). To cut a longer explanation short, the way he described it was that all shapes, patterns, ideas exist in nature. At it's simplest, an artist looks at a wave breaking and makes a representation of it. This representation does not belong to the artist, but is something that nature has imprinted onto the perception and thoughts of the artist. While the artist can then represent things in different ways, their 'humours' and what lead them to do something in such a way are themselves are a result of other things happening around them. This then of course could be extrapolated to other forms of art and creativity, music, sculpture etc.
I'm not suggesting for a moment that the people carrying out IP infringement go through this kind of thought process to justify it for themselves, but it's something that I think is engrained in culture and social norms; to put it finely, you don't just have a higher percentage of people breaking the law in China because they are morally repugnant, they genuinely believe there is no issue with it. And this is often what causes such conflict in the business and financial worlds where the two cultures have to try and interact with each other.
Ok - not going to lie that metaphor and/or explanation of their culture is an awesome explanation. Interesting imagery as well.
Genoside07 wrote: Just a word of warning, China doesn't have as many safety regulations like most other countries; Your major concern should be, what is the materials to make these?; It could be something very toxic and make lead of years past look like nothing. Add on top of a guy working out of his garage using what he has on hand; Might end up in the hospital and loose a few fingers from a cheap miniature.
Or, by applying Occam's Razor, it could simply be resin. Resin is not expensive, there is little room for using some cheap, more toxic, alternative, plus it is poor business practice to kill your customers.
Frankly the whole "Chinese recasts will poison you" thing, and I'm not specifically attacking you, it is something that gets brought up every time this subject gets broached, more or less, smacks of a scare story trotted out by the uninformed and those with a vested interest.
Killing customers hasn't been a problem for some Chinese manufacturers of pet and baby foods, so I am not sure I can take your assurances at face value.
Having never cast with resin myself I am not educated on the process, including the materials used to mix resin, but is it so easy to dismiss concerns of material safety when discussing counterfeit goods produced in countries known to have a questionable safety record regarding materials introduced to consumer products?
Can resin be "cut" with other materials to extend the use of the batch or enhance it in other ways to make it more cost efficient? If so, I'd be skeptical that whatever a Chinese or Russian counterfeiter might use to make their illegal business more profitable was also safe for the consumer to bring into their home.
Azreal, you speak with certainty that fear of poisonous resins from China/Russia is a non-issue. Care to share your knowledge on why you think the safety of those materials are beyond questioning? I'd even open this question up to anyone else in the thread that is qualified to answer it. Concerns over toxic materials has kept me from purchasing non-counterfeit resin models Russia and China in the past so this is an area I'd like to learn more about.
Azreal, you speak with certainty that fear of poisonous resins from China/Russia is a non-issue. Care to share your knowledge on why you think the safety of those materials are beyond questioning? I'd even open this question up to anyone else in the thread that is qualified to answer it. Concerns over toxic materials has kept me from purchasing non-counterfeit resin models Russia and China in the past so this is an area I'd like to learn more about.
As we have a little daughter, we had our stock of FW stuff checked. Resin (or rather: in general, production quality) used had a lower quality than comparable GW models and toxicity levels were slightly higher, but still far from being actually toxic. Stuff checked were a Giant Squigg, Squigg Gobbla, Fire Elemental, Tomb Stalker, 6 Sentry Pylons and 2 Pylons. Bought from 2 different retailers.
SonsofVulkan wrote: They are almost certainly knock offs, please don't link to things you believe are knock offs, we don't advocate piracy on dakka. You probably weren't advocating it either, just curious about it, but still. motyak
Most likely knock offs, but they look so legit and cheap. Take the chance?
SonsofVulkan wrote: They are almost certainly knock offs, please don't link to things you believe are knock offs, we don't advocate piracy on dakka. You probably weren't advocating it either, just curious about it, but still. motyak
Most likely knock offs, but they look so legit and cheap. Take the chance?
Where's the link?
A mod edited the post and the link is no longer there.
I have to wonder how much more toxic any resin can be used for miniatures. It's not as if any is healthy to breathe so safety precautions for one should cover the others. The general toxicity of resin seems overstated, there's often a thread started where people are concerned about a cancer risk. Wash your hands and don't breathe the dust, as you would with many chemicals.
Why does one Chinese seller, the expensive one, say the others use dodgy "cheap quality and toxic" resin that's inferior to Forgeworld, then?
Surely none of them would tell a lie, they're all honest people, unlike those from Nottingham!
Pretty sure the guy you're thinking of is an ex-pat, so I'm gonna say good old murrikan marketing. His stuff is gorgeous, tho.
As always, offerings differ. I've seen resin that is on the level of Ramshacle Games (ie. ultra cheap, heavy, brittle) and resin that is undeniably better than FW (for modelling; I'm not making any claims about heath)
Azreal, you speak with certainty that fear of poisonous resins from China/Russia is a non-issue. Care to share your knowledge on why you think the safety of those materials are beyond questioning? I'd even open this question up to anyone else in the thread that is qualified to answer it. Concerns over toxic materials has kept me from purchasing non-counterfeit resin models Russia and China in the past so this is an area I'd like to learn more about.
As we have a little daughter, we had our stock of FW stuff checked. Resin (or rather: in general, production quality) used had a lower quality than comparable GW models and toxicity levels were slightly lower, but still far from being actually toxic. Stuff checked were a Giant Squigg, Squigg Gobbla, Fire Elemental, Tomb Stalker, 6 Sentry Pylons and 2 Pylons. Bought from 2 different retailers.
Excellent, thanks for the response.
So, the non-FW models sourced elsewhere had a lower toxicity level than comparable GW models? That is interesting and unexpected indeed!
Genoside07 wrote: Just a word of warning, China doesn't have as many safety regulations like most other countries; Your major concern should be, what is the materials to make these?; It could be something very toxic and make lead of years past look like nothing. Add on top of a guy working out of his garage using what he has on hand; Might end up in the hospital and loose a few fingers from a cheap miniature.
Or, by applying Occam's Razor, it could simply be resin. Resin is not expensive, there is little room for using some cheap, more toxic, alternative, plus it is poor business practice to kill your customers.
Frankly the whole "Chinese recasts will poison you" thing, and I'm not specifically attacking you, it is something that gets brought up every time this subject gets broached, more or less, smacks of a scare story trotted out by the uninformed and those with a vested interest.
Killing customers hasn't been a problem for some Chinese manufacturers of pet and baby foods, so I am not sure I can take your assurances at face value.
I'm pretty sure nobody is eating their recasts.
Having never cast with resin myself I am not educated on the process, including the materials used to mix resin, but is it so easy to dismiss concerns of material safety when discussing counterfeit goods produced in countries known to have a questionable safety record regarding materials introduced to consumer products?
Can resin be "cut" with other materials to extend the use of the batch or enhance it in other ways to make it more cost efficient? If so, I'd be skeptical that whatever a Chinese or Russian counterfeiter might use to make their illegal business more profitable was also safe for the consumer to bring into their home.
Azreal, you speak with certainty that fear of poisonous resins from China/Russia is a non-issue. Care to share your knowledge on why you think the safety of those materials are beyond questioning? I'd even open this question up to anyone else in the thread that is qualified to answer it. Concerns over toxic materials has kept me from purchasing non-counterfeit resin models Russia and China in the past so this is an area I'd like to learn more about.
Let me turn it around, what, exactly, do you think would be significantly cheaper than resin, an already cheap material, to make it worth substituting that wouldn't compromise the properties of the material when it comes to casting?
This would also need to be a material that was sufficiently toxic, once trapped in cured resin, to be of danger simply by handling it and perhaps inhaling a small amount of dust (something which is inadvisable with resin whose provenance isn't in question.)
Like I said, Occam's Razor, the most likely explanation is that they're just using resin, because there's no obvious benefit to doing anything else. Oh, and all resin is toxic before it is cured, it is that chemical process that renders it inert, so there's no real point in worrying that they perhaps use different compounds.
At the end of the day, the best material to make resin models out of is resin.
I have worked in plastic packaging manufacturing business for the last 20+ years so I know a few things about plastics; I personally don't know to many of you and have no way of stopping someone from hurting themselves. But how many of us really wear safety glasses, dust masks, rubber gloves, etc every single time we work with our miniatures? I am not saying every single knock off miniature will hurt you, but extended exposure to some chemicals can cause liver and/or kidney damage. And I am surprised to hear someone tested the materials, because when we send anything out to private labs it usually costs a few hundred dollars, enough to buy a ton forge world stuff. So is getting cheap miniatures worth it?? That's not my call.. Its all about want and need. But if someone is already breaking the law by counterfeiting; do you think they are insuring the resin is cured properly or safe materials are used?
What we currently define as piracy is problematic.
As scanning and printing technology becomes cheaper (and 3D Printing has fallen in price MUCH faster than 3D scanning technology, which remains surprisingly expensive for decent resolution scanning) it will become essentially impossible to enforce copyright.
This doesn't mean that it will be any more right to do so than it was/is to record a song off the radio, or to take a photo of a work of art (there are already low quality 3D scanners that allow the assembly of a 3D mesh from a selection of photos) and then print a poster of it to hang on your wall.
We have this problem rapidly approaching us, and not just in the realm of crafts and hobbies.
Car manufacturers are going to begin having trouble selling new cars when people can have parts and new body styles simply printed out and attached to their cars by robotic workers.
And robots are replacing not just low-skilled labor, but degreed professionals (the first people being displaced by IBM's Watson are Lawyers and Doctors).
This leaves us with the problem of not just how artists are going to support themselves....
But how ANYONE who does not hold capital will support themselves.
People see this issue in a broad variety of lights, but regardless of ideology, it represents an eventual collapse of our current system.
Because if Capital Holders have no customers, then the economy will cease to exist.
That is the bottom line of what we are facing, or which Miniature Piracy is simply a symptom.
A machine will never replace a doctor truly. First machines can't design experiments. And can't anticipate everything.
But at least my job is safe, I doubt Cps worker will be replaced by robots........hopefully.
Genoside07 wrote: I have worked in plastic packaging manufacturing business for the last 20+ years so I know a few things about plastics; I personally don't know to many of you and have no way of stopping someone from hurting themselves. But how many of us really wear safety glasses, dust masks, rubber gloves, etc every single time we work with our miniatures? I am not saying every single knock off miniature will hurt you, but extended exposure to some chemicals can cause liver and/or kidney damage. And I am surprised to hear someone tested the materials, because when we send anything out to private labs it usually costs a few hundred dollars, enough to buy a ton forge world stuff. So is getting cheap miniatures worth it?? That's not my call.. Its all about want and need. But if someone is already breaking the law by counterfeiting; do you think they are insuring the resin is cured properly or safe materials are used?
It's not counterfeiting, as they aren't passing them off as genuine.
What materials are there that would be hazardous under normal hobbying conditions that would do the job? How toxic would they be in the small amounts of material that are present in even a relatively large model like a tank or Knight? Would they be sufficiently poisonous that they could still do harm once sealed under primer, several layers of paint and probably a varnish coat (or two?)
I'm not debating that even "proper" resin is potentially toxic, but if one isn't casting it personally, I'm really struggling to see any danger at the levels of exposure that a typical hobbyist will be exposed to vs so,some who casts commercially for years or decades.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Not unless there's some cultural changes, which can happen, I wouldn't be holding my breath though.
What a completely jingoistic idea to express. Much more appropriate to expect the world to conform to a Western moral code than realize the world is a large place chuck full of different concepts of morality.
Instead of shaking fists angrily at China when their culture is at odds, try not supporting it. If countries that find their behavior reprehensible would stop doing business with them, there would be no problem.
I'll see your jingoism and raise you a hint of naïveté.
Sure, individual consumers could stop buying Chinese made product, which in turn would pressure companies into stopping buying their goods from Chinese factories, but the reality is that a source of cheap labour (and therefore cheap goods) is vital to the global economy, and it is currently China's turn.
The world could no more stop buying stuff from China than it could stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow. It will continue until the Chinese economy develops to the point where it is no longer viable in this role, and then it will be someone else's turn (likely an African nation, or possibly South America.)
If one, as an individual, cares enough to boycott Chinese product, then the only thing that really gets achieved is a sense of doing what one feels is right. The odds of it making much of a difference is as likely as a thread created to call for a boycott of GW actually working.
hotsauceman1 wrote: A machine will never replace a doctor truly. First machines can't design experiments. And can't anticipate everything.
But at least my job is safe, I doubt Cps worker will be replaced by robots........hopefully.
And that would be just wishful thinking.
We are about ten years away (probably less) from an AI that is human equivalent.
And a Doctor's job is not as complex, in terms of what they actually do as people think.
It is sort of like why a computer was able to beat Chess so early on.
A doctor's job is really just stockpiling large numbers of outcomes, and then cross referencing for a diagnosis.
And IBM's Watson does this far better than a human ever could.
I have been friends with most of they big names in Artificial Intelligence for around a decade now, and were it not for being slowed by a disability, I would now be in graduate school studying cybernetics. Google's Director of Engineering has told me that they will have a human level AI probably by 2020. My own studies (even though late in life in that respect...) are on augmenting humans so that we can keep up with the machines.
The only problem is that even will with augmented humans, we will still be more expensive and less reliable for almost all jobs than are machines.
As for CPS workers being replaced by Robots, China and Japan are working toward that goal even faster than is the USA (Although Google's Acquisition of Boston Dynamics is likely to alter that equilibrium somewhat), and it is likely to happen sooner than you think.
Dr. Ron Arkin at Georgia Tech has written a book about why many jobs that we tend to think of as being "forbidden' to robots would actually be better served by being done by robots (Soldiers, Prison Guards, Cops, CPS workers, ..... His list is incredibly long). He literally wrote the book for the US development of Autonomous Military Robots (armed and unarmed).
And he is not alone in pointing out these things.
And, as I was pointing out above, we need to be especially concerned about this, because, even in cases where robots might do a better job, as Dr. Sherry Turkle at MIT has pointed out in her work on the social implications of technology, while robots might be able to do a better job than humans in these roles in terms of the vast majority of metrics, there still remain social costs for replacement that go beyond just economics.
But it is economics that is predominantly driving this replacement, social costs be damned.
In terms of piracy.... We have our civilization being threatened to be pirated by automation, leaving humans with little to do.
That could be either the best, or the worst thing that ever happened to us, depending upon how we react.
Yep. In the 1800's things were made in Britain and New England because it was cheap and there was capital. Then in the 1900's it was America as a whole and then Germany and Japan got in on the act because again those places were cheap post war and produced quality goods. Now those three countries can't do it as cheaply but still make quality goods and its moved on to China and other places like Vietnam for cheap. Then it'll be the next country. Eventually everyone becomes better off. The end.
Azreal13 wrote: I'll see your jingoism and raise you a hint of naïveté.
Sure, individual consumers could stop buying Chinese made product, which in turn would pressure companies into stopping buying their goods from Chinese factories, but the reality is that a source of cheap labour (and therefore cheap goods) is vital to the global economy, and it is currently China's turn.
The world could no more stop buying stuff from China than it could stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow. It will continue until the Chinese economy develops to the point where it is no longer viable in this role, and then it will be someone else's turn (likely an African nation, or possibly South America.)
If one, as an individual, cares enough to boycott Chinese product, then the only thing that really gets achieved is a sense of doing what one feels is right. The odds of it making much of a difference is as likely as a thread created to call for a boycott of GW actually working.
You kind of missed my point. I don't expect people to stop buying cheap, made in China goods just as I don't expect people to suddenly realize that the way that they were reared and the culture they originate from are not the golden bastion of purity that all should aspire to emulate.
hotsauceman1 wrote: A machine will never replace a doctor truly. First machines can't design experiments. And can't anticipate everything.
But at least my job is safe, I doubt Cps worker will be replaced by robots........hopefully.
Computers have been able to design experiments for some time now.
My own field of study (Systems Theory - Computational & Systems Biology) has basically codified the means of creating automated Systems Analysis and Modeling.
We are basically in the end-game of our current computing paradigm, not to mention way-of-life.
This is why we are having so many disorienting issues crop up like miniature piracy, where the technology to do so has become so inexpensive, and easily available that anyone can produce what used to be specialty items.
And we wrestle with the peripheral issues of morality concerning these changes, dancing around, in an effort to ignore the elephant in the room, the central issues that must be confronted.
MB
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Col. Tartleton wrote: Yep. In the 1800's things were made in Britain and New England because it was cheap and there was capital. Then in the 1900's it was America as a whole and then Germany and Japan got in on the act because again those places were cheap post war and produced quality goods. Now those three countries can't do it as cheaply but still make quality goods and its moved on to China and other places like Vietnam for cheap. Then it'll be the next country. Eventually everyone becomes better off. The end.
This isn not true while a periphery remains.
We are likely to see an end to the requirement for labor before Africa becomes the periphery of manufacturing.
That will never happen, as it would be nearly impossible to identify.
Plus the term "Artificial" Intelligence is a misnomer. The intelligence is just as real as ours.
It would just exist in/on a different substrate, which might not be inorganic (in other words, it could be just as organic as our brain, simply better optimized).
Ted Berger at UCS has effectively solved most of the issues surrounding creating prosthetic neural appliances, which means that he could, in theory, construct a wholly prosthetic brain.
Combine this with the work of Henry Markham's Blue Brain (and successors), and Dharmedra Modha's SyNAPSE, and you could built a synthetic brain that vastly outperformed our own.
BeAfraid wrote: This is why we are having so many disorienting issues crop up like miniature piracy, where the technology to do so has become so inexpensive, and easily available that anyone can produce what used to be specialty items.
No is isn't, because miniature piracy has nothing to do with modern technology. Recasts are made with the same old resin casting techniques everyone has been using for decades. The only difference between recasting in 1970 and recasting in 2015 is that the internet has allowed a shift from "I know a guy who knows a guy" to Chinese businesses openly advertising their recasts on ebay.
So since the cost of recasts will always be cheaper than buying legitimate Forge World models, what would actually motivate people buying recasts to buy the real thing instead?
Bookwrack wrote: So since the cost of recasts will always be cheaper than buying legitimate Forge World models, what would actually motivate people buying recasts to buy the real thing instead?
Well, there is always the minor possibility that the person is scamming you. If you buy from Forge World you don't have to worry that you might have just given your credit card away or that you'll end up with a piece of junk. Forge Will at the very least replace any defective product. No such guarantee from a guy in China.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Not unless there's some cultural changes, which can happen, I wouldn't be holding my breath though.
What a completely jingoistic idea to express. Much more appropriate to expect the world to conform to a Western moral code than realize the world is a large place chuck full of different concepts of morality.
Instead of shaking fists angrily at China when their culture is at odds, try not supporting it. If countries that find their behavior reprehensible would stop doing business with them, there would be no problem.
What? I feel like insulting you but that would be against the rules.
I never said they should change I never said they would change I never said I'm shaking my fist at them, don't put words in my mouth. I was simply commenting on the fact "it would never change" as being "well it could, if there was a cultural change".
I won't deny that I don't think a knock-off culture is a desirable one, but don't make gak up that I never said and then attribute it to me, tyvm.
Bookwrack wrote: So since the cost of recasts will always be cheaper than buying legitimate Forge World models, what would actually motivate people buying recasts to buy the real thing instead?
FW could easily narrow the gap in price and quality enough to make the risk, long waiting times, hassles with Engrish and stress of dealing with customs not worth it.
More importantly, they could narrow it enough so that customers wouldn't feel like they're being ripped off, which makes piracy really easy to justify to oneself.
For example, Anvil Industry stuff is, to my knowledge, also all produced in the UK yet costs pretty much half of what FW charges for kits of comparable size and quality. So it's clearly feasible to charge less.
Genoside07 wrote: Just a word of warning, China doesn't have as many safety regulations like most other countries; Your major concern should be, what is the materials to make these?; It could be something very toxic and make lead of years past look like nothing. Add on top of a guy working out of his garage using what he has on hand; Might end up in the hospital and loose a few fingers from a cheap miniature.
Or, by applying Occam's Razor, it could simply be resin. Resin is not expensive, there is little room for using some cheap, more toxic, alternative, plus it is poor business practice to kill your customers.
Frankly the whole "Chinese recasts will poison you" thing, and I'm not specifically attacking you, it is something that gets brought up every time this subject gets broached, more or less, smacks of a scare story trotted out by the uninformed and those with a vested interest.
The problem is that there are nuggets of (very scary) truth amongst the scare stories.
Two scares I remember in the states with chinese produced goods was a powdered baby milk contamination that had lots of chemicals and materials found in wood flooring laminate in it, and pet food that had toxic filler mixed in with it.
There is currently a laminate flooring scandal with lumber liquidators that the Chinese produced and assembled wood flooring is giving off enough volatile organic carbons to make air quality inside some claimants in Nevada's home technically considered of a quality unsafe to breath.
In short, yes you're probably mostly fine. However the deviations where Occam's doesn't work are fething scary. I don't blame people for not buying chinese products that aren't hyper regulated through several layers of corporate oversight and regulation. It's not perfect as the above examples prove, but its better than one off garage businesses like a recaster. Caveat emptor.
lord_blackfang wrote: For example, Anvil Industry stuff is, to my knowledge, also all produced in the UK yet costs pretty much half of what FW charges for kits of comparable size and quality. So it's clearly feasible to charge less.
Yes, but Anvil have a slower release rate, don't employ figure painters or traditional artists and, until recently, didn't publish rules (and those were Kickstarted).
I've never had a quality problem with FW (apart from slightly bent barrels).
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Haight wrote: The problem is that there are nuggets of (very scary) truth amongst the scare stories.
A friend of mine got some Grot Tanks off eBay. When he opened the box they stunk of solvents. After a week of washing/scrubbing/soaking they still stunk of solvents so he threw them out rather than risk anything. I saw (and smelt) them - they looked OK but were very brittle and an off-white/yellow resin.
As with everything else in this world, there are professional, competent and trustful recasters, and there are ones who are not.
I've hold recasted models in my hands and never saw, felt nor smelled anything suspicious about them, always looked like pretty inocuous resin (in diverse kinds, colors and qualities).
You just have to be careful regarding who you do business with. Tip: the cheapest seller tends not to be the best one.
BrookM wrote: Not to mention join the rest of the world and stop doing things through fax and phone.
Forge World (and GW for that matter), are hurting themselves by not having an active social media arm. Emails and Newsletters is all they have, and I wish they did more. However, you are off base with this statement. I just logged into my FW account and see that I've made 16 orders since September 2010.
I order Forge World from my computer. No faxes or phone calls required. Now I can even use paypal.
I've only ever talked to someone at FW at Conventions, and they didn't try to pass me any Flavor Aid. I've never had to fax anyone anything.
The 1 time I had an issue with an order, it took 2 emails. 1 email to explain the issue, and 1 email to thank them for correcting the issue.
Brook is specifically referring to their free shipping promotions, which over the last few years, while everyone else and his dog simply have a voucher code entry at the checkout, have required, at least under certain circumstances, people to fax their order through.
Azreal13 wrote: Brook is specifically referring to their free shipping promotions, which over the last few years, while everyone else and his dog simply have a voucher code entry at the checkout, have required, at least under certain circumstances, people to fax their order through.
To return to the toxin fears, it really sounds like some people are letting their paranoia get the better of them.
Yes, there were issues with baby powder, and other products too I'm sure, but to use those as a reason not to buy a completely different product from totally different people isn't really logical. I mean, there's that old conspiracy theory about car makers calculating the cost of compensation for causing deaths against the cost of a recall to fix dangerously faulty cars, does that mean I shouldn't buy a stereo from that country? Should I not drink coke because cigarettes can give you cancer?
Equally "they smelled a bit different, so I threw them away" while perfectly understandable, is an emotional, not logical, reaction. I'm pretty sure the number of things that smell and pose no risk to health far outnumber the things that do, and, again, it is important to differentiate between "toxic if you do something weird like eat it or sleep with it at night" and "toxic if you handle it and treat it like any other model."
Plus if this were a realistic problem to be worried about, then given the sheer quantity of stuff that China makes it should therefore be happening more often, no?
Azreal, you speak with certainty that fear of poisonous resins from China/Russia is a non-issue. Care to share your knowledge on why you think the safety of those materials are beyond questioning? I'd even open this question up to anyone else in the thread that is qualified to answer it. Concerns over toxic materials has kept me from purchasing non-counterfeit resin models Russia and China in the past so this is an area I'd like to learn more about.
As we have a little daughter, we had our stock of FW stuff checked. Resin (or rather: in general, production quality) used had a lower quality than comparable GW models and toxicity levels were slightly higher, but still far from being actually toxic. Stuff checked were a Giant Squigg, Squigg Gobbla, Fire Elemental, Tomb Stalker, 6 Sentry Pylons and 2 Pylons. Bought from 2 different retailers.
To be honest, the most disturbing thing in this business is that copies are more often of higher quality than the original (talking about the pieces: better molded, less bubble/gap troubles, ...). And they are cheaper.
Sure, piracy is bad, but I believe there is still something wrong with how Forgeworld handle their products. IP aside, they shouldn't be so expensive while being sometimes a true horror to build.
But then again, Forgeworld customers are way too lenient with them. I can understand why they can get upset when they realize someone in China can give them the same product but with better quality for a lower price. It's like rubbing in their face the fact they did pay a lot for nothing (or worse, for something of a crapper quality).
Even more if the pirates act very professionnal. They did change a lot over the years.
Sarouan wrote: To be honest, the most disturbing thing in this business is that copies are more often of higher quality than the original (talking about the pieces: better molded, less bubble/gap troubles, ...). And they are cheaper.
Sure, piracy is bad, but I believe there is still something wrong with how Forgeworld handle their products.
I find the phenomenon of how a later generation copy is better than the original somewhat magical. Truly magical. Amazing people those Chinese!
The one recast item i have in my possession - a torso, which I've acuired via roundabout means - is poor quality, took a lot of work to fix. It's from one of the better-known sellers I believe (but not the more recent expensive seller who says all the other Chinese resin is poor quality and toxic). It's fine, allowed me to get a good model using a bunch of other bits which would otherwise have been useless.
But I can't help thinking that those promoting recasts are even more prone to hyperbole than the gwombles or whatever the current derogatory term is...
But I can't help thinking that those promoting recasts are even more prone to hyperbole than the gwombles or whatever the current derogatory term is...
Depends from which you are buying. You have to be aware the times when copies always meant bad quality are in the past.
Now, there are people who act more "professionnal" and use the new technologies to make their copies.
I saw quite a lot of them and talked with "bad players" who bought to some "known" pirates with "good reputation" (yeah, it sounds strange). That's definitely another league we have there.
But then, you can also close your eyes if you like it better that way. Will not change the fact it will still exist.
It's not counterfeiting, as they aren't passing them off as genuine.
How many of these recasters are specifically stating that the models you are bidding on are recasts?
Edit note:
That's not an attempt at "Gotcha!" posting or anything. I'm really curious, as I don't browse feeBay at all and am wondering what people consider necessary for the "passing them off as genuine" caveat to have been met.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Not unless there's some cultural changes, which can happen, I wouldn't be holding my breath though.
What a completely jingoistic idea to express. Much more appropriate to expect the world to conform to a Western moral code than realize the world is a large place chuck full of different concepts of morality.
Instead of shaking fists angrily at China when their culture is at odds, try not supporting it. If countries that find their behavior reprehensible would stop doing business with them, there would be no problem.
What? I feel like insulting you but that would be against the rules.
I never said they should change I never said they would change I never said I'm shaking my fist at them, don't put words in my mouth. I was simply commenting on the fact "it would never change" as being "well it could, if there was a cultural change".
I won't deny that I don't think a knock-off culture is a desirable one, but don't make gak up that I never said and then attribute it to me, tyvm.
You'll note that nowhere in my statement did I address YOU, personally. I simply observed the jingoistic attitude expressed through the comment; one (or its like) that you may have expressed but is often stated. So rather, my comment, though addressed at something you typed, is more a statement on a prevailing ill in Western society. Espousing the changing of a culture because it doesn't fit the expected "norm" of someone's country of origin is exactly one of the larger reasons for conflict in the world; "They don't think like us, they need to change!"
Since you took what I stated personally and seem to be under the misguided assumption that you don't actually ascribe to such a sentiment, I'll quote this statement from you earlier in the thread:
[quoteI know it's a cultural thing, but personally I like the fact we live in a culture where an artist can make a living off their work without having to find a wealthy patron to support them, I'd rather it stayed that way.
You're making a broad assumption here, based upon an apparent cultural bias I'll assume, that in Asia and in China in particular artists are unable to make a living due to their work being copied. This sentiment, again a prevailing one, is factually incorrect as artists in nations that do not ascribe to the Western concept of IP protection are able to live quite well. It would be just as easy to state that if middle and upper management of companies would stop paying themselves so much, workers would be paid more and society would benefit. Or, more appropriately, if artists actually controlled their art and not entertainment moguls, they and society would be better off.
In example, a .99 (USD) sale on iTunes will net an artist about .06 after all the middle-men take their cut; who is actually creating the art and why is the record company getting 60-70% of the money made from sales? So, steal a song and you're just costing the artist .06, go to the concert instead since the labels don't get any of that money. (http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=86535&page=1&singlePage=true) Asian cultures realize this which is why no one is crying rivers or alienating fans (Metallica) over people buying or downloading their music in Asia because they KNOW they'll make their money at the concerts and on tour.
On topic here. The biggest issue with bootleg miniatures is with FW and wonky priced plastics. A bootlegger in China should never be able to deliver a resin copy of a plastic model for cheaper than the company that produces it in bulk; they're able to because, let's face it, GW prices some of their plastic miniatures at insane prices. If a company is going to act that way, they shouldn't be surprised with the consequences. The difference between GW kits and true luxury goods is that a Coach purse at least is made out of a material that warrants a good part of the cost and not plastic that can be bought for relative pennies on the ton. Their costs to produce the calculated into the cost and then some random factor comes into play that only they know and the final price becomes unsustainable.
HivefleetO beat me too it. All this talk about recasts as 'better' was very... odd. At a maximum, they're only going to be about as good as the original models recieved from FW, so if what the recasters are selling is so good...
BookW has a point. The fact that I don't feel ripped off by FW prices is just my opinion, but it doesn't matter how much they lower costs, the recasts are always going to be signifigantly cheaper. FW is never going to catch up, because all the recaster needs is to buy one set of models from FW and a resin casting setup and they're good to go. I'm reminded of a screed I read about a guy justifying why he pirated all his video games - because once a game was made, the only cost was the disc, so charging (it was yen but the USD cost was)$80-$100 was stealing out of his pocket, so the companies had no one to blame but themselves.
There are a lot of problems with that statement, and I'm pretty much seeing the same flaws in the 'no problem with recasts' posted here.
What would be a price that'd have people choose FW over the recaster? $5 more? $20? You're going to run into the fact that catagorically, there is always going to be a signifigant price difference. If FW lowers the price as much as possible, but you want a nice set of big legion tanks and you still save a hundred dollars buying from the recaster, will you go with FW anyway?
Portugal Jones wrote: HivefleetO beat me too it. All this talk about recasts as 'better' was very... odd. At a maximum, they're only going to be about as good as the original models recieved from FW, so if what the recasters are selling is so good...
It isn't so much they're HD casts over the SDFW originals as that it seems when the mould is created from the original, it seems many recasters take the time to correct casting errors in the original, so they're not present in the later casts.
The very nature of recasting is exactly the same process as casting, it's just the moulds are taken from another copy rather than the master. You're still essentially looking at a 1st generation copy though, and in circumstances where I've seen models side by side, any loss of detail doesn't really notice.
BookW has a point. The fact that I don't feel ripped off by FW prices is just my opinion, but it doesn't matter how much they lower costs, the recasts are always going to be signifigantly cheaper. FW is never going to catch up, because all the recaster needs is to buy one set of models from FW and a resin casting setup and they're good to go. I'm reminded of a screed I read about a guy justifying why he pirated all his video games - because once a game was made, the only cost was the disc, so charging (it was yen but the USD cost was)$80-$100 was stealing out of his pocket, so the companies had no one to blame but themselves.
There are a lot of problems with that statement, and I'm pretty much seeing the same flaws in the 'no problem with recasts' posted here.
What would be a price that'd have people choose FW over the recaster? $5 more? $20? You're going to run into the fact that catagorically, there is always going to be a signifigant price difference. If FW lowers the price as much as possible, but you want a nice set of big legion tanks and you still save a hundred dollars buying from the recaster, will you go with FW anyway?
There's a point where it is no longer viable for recasters to make enough cash to be worth it, unlike digital products, there is a tangible physical cost to making each model, and they're ongoing in resin casts because moulds need replacing etc
FW wouldn't need to lower costs that low, just low enough that the benefits of buying the original outweigh the savings of buying a recast.
As someone already said, you seldom see recasts of plastic kits advertised, as paying £12-15 for a kit that can be bought from a discounter for £18 just isn't worthwhile.
@Kan
I can only speak for the ads I've seen on a fairly widely known ?Chinese ebay/Amazon equivalent, but in their listing they nearly always have something along the lines of "this isn't an original, and may have some flaws, if you want a perfect copy buy original"
Only poorly translated from Mandarin into English!
I've seen enough of both that I can guarantee that good copies are better than Forgeworld. The sculpt is obviously the same, but there is less warping, bubbles, broken bits, missing bits, etc. The measure is honestly pretty simple - how much time does it take me to get this model from the bag to being ready to paint? FW isn't exactly a champion in this department.
Some recasters also tend to assemle models partway before copying them. Which leads me to think they have better quality mold rubber and better skill, to be able to cast more complicated pieces than FW can.
Portugal Jones wrote: What would be a price that'd have people choose FW over the recaster? $5 more? $20? You're going to run into the fact that catagorically, there is always going to be a signifigant price difference. If FW lowers the price as much as possible, but you want a nice set of big legion tanks and you still save a hundred dollars buying from the recaster, will you go with FW anyway?
If they just charged what other companies tend to charge for resin, recasters wouldn't even bother. Infantry minis at about 2 pounds per mini, and terminator-like infantry at 3 - 3'5 pounds per mini.
Instead FW decides to charge almost 7 pounds per terminator model, so recasters naturally take advantage of that, and offer the same product (or better) at around 3'5 pounds per mini. Half the price, same or even better product. Someone is doing something wrong.
As I've said before, recasters don't even bother with GW's cheapest plastic kits (i.e. dark elf corsairs) so the "recasts will always be cheaper so you'll never buy the official product" argument is terribly flawed. However recasters do bother with GW's most expensive plastic kits (i.e. executioners/black guard). Hence recasters have a business because GW allows it.
Lord Blackfang and Azreal13 explained it better than me. The sculpt is obviously not changing, but it's all about the quality of separate parts that can be better than Forgeworld's work.
And that is really disturbing to me; you're paying the original and are rewarded by gaps, bubbles or broken bits? No kidding they are very good on customer support. For the price they're asking, that's the very least they have to do, otherwise no one would ever buy from them.
But then, buying from Forgeworld is a matter of blind passion, not reason. That's why people are very lenient with them, IMHO.
Azreal, you speak with certainty that fear of poisonous resins from China/Russia is a non-issue. Care to share your knowledge on why you think the safety of those materials are beyond questioning? I'd even open this question up to anyone else in the thread that is qualified to answer it. Concerns over toxic materials has kept me from purchasing non-counterfeit resin models Russia and China in the past so this is an area I'd like to learn more about.
As we have a little daughter, we had our stock of FW stuff checked. Resin (or rather: in general, production quality) used had a lower quality than comparable GW models and toxicity levels were slightly higher, but still far from being actually toxic. Stuff checked were a Giant Squigg, Squigg Gobbla, Fire Elemental, Tomb Stalker, 6 Sentry Pylons and 2 Pylons. Bought from 2 different retailers.
Checked? By whom? How much did that cost?
Frauenhofer Institut, not giving the exact amount of money but more than we paid for all the models.
BeAfraid wrote: This is why we are having so many disorienting issues crop up like miniature piracy, where the technology to do so has become so inexpensive, and easily available that anyone can produce what used to be specialty items.
No is isn't, because miniature piracy has nothing to do with modern technology. Recasts are made with the same old resin casting techniques everyone has been using for decades. The only difference between recasting in 1970 and recasting in 2015 is that the internet has allowed a shift from "I know a guy who knows a guy" to Chinese businesses openly advertising their recasts on ebay.
The Internet offered a medium where people who otherwise might not even know how to go about making a mold, or casting, can just google:
"Resin Casting Tutorials"
And get a selection of hundreds of people offering tips for just about everything one might encounter in creating a mold and casting.
And then forums where modelers are available to be asked questions when problems arise.
In the 1980s/90s, mold making was still a very specialized skill, even among Modelers. Even more so if we are talking Vulcanized Rubber Molds.
Yet there are now ubiquitous means of accessing that knowledge.
AND....
Mold making itself is beginning to experience a threat from 3D scanning/printing technologies.
If you are upset about "recasters" now, how are you going to feel when people can buy a machine for a few thousand dollars that effectively lets them Xerox their miniatures? Such machines are already less than $10,000, and the price is falling pretty rapidly.
3-D printing will not replace casting for a long time. The printers are too expensive and too slow relative to molds to make creating detailed miniatures that way feasible.
It takes hours to make a single miniature with a 3-d printer. In that same period, I can cast dozens of models using a regular mold.
Now they can, sort of, but they still take forever. And even if they manage to become fast enough to mass produce anything they'll remain complicated and expensive pieces of equipment. Molds will still be preferable forms of production.
Grey Templar wrote: 3-D printing will not replace casting for a long time. The printers are too expensive and too slow relative to molds to make creating detailed miniatures that way feasible.
It takes hours to make a single miniature with a 3-d printer. In that same period, I can cast dozens of models using a regular mold.
You would need to define "a long time."
I've worked with 3D Printing and Milling technologies for around 12 years now, and the newer technologies are becoming incredibly fast (with multiple cyclic print-heads that can lay down multiple layers a second).
And Stereolithography can be incredibly fast (but remains incredibly expensive, comparatively, to deposition printing methods).
But we have seen, in five years, the price of 3D printers fall to below $1,000 for .12mm resolution deposition printing, and below $5,000 for Stereolithography (with a very tiny print-tray).
And it is likely that within 5 years, we are going to see the same thing happen with scanners.
In five years, the technology will be inexpensive enough that th nature of piracy will have changed considerably.
For instance, with what I have available at the place where I am currently contracted, I have been extremely tempted to scan a bunch of 40K stuff, and then print it at 15mm size.... Since so many people want 15mm 40K, that isn't just a proxy.
Now they can, sort of, but they still take forever. And even if they manage to become fast enough to mass produce anything they'll remain complicated and expensive pieces of equipment. Molds will still be preferable forms of production.
We're not talking mass production though, we're talking being able to download and print a couple of dozen Space Marines for the home user, or even scan and replicate the same.
I agree, as a mass production method it's probably a significant time yet (if it ever becomes practical or necessary) but for the scale needed (both in terms of modelling scale and scope) for a hobbyist to, in effect, recast their own models, I think it is a lot closer.
Hobbyists, not likely. Pets, or children, however...
Azreal13 wrote: Let me turn it around, what, exactly, do you think would be significantly cheaper than resin, an already cheap material, to make it worth substituting that wouldn't compromise the properties of the material when it comes to casting?
This would also need to be a material that was sufficiently toxic, once trapped in cured resin, to be of danger simply by handling it and perhaps inhaling a small amount of dust (something which is inadvisable with resin whose provenance isn't in question.)
Like I said, Occam's Razor, the most likely explanation is that they're just using resin, because there's no obvious benefit to doing anything else. Oh, and all resin is toxic before it is cured, it is that chemical process that renders it inert, so there's no real point in worrying that they perhaps use different compounds.
At the end of the day, the best material to make resin models out of is resin.
Again, I am acknowledging my ignorance regarding resin use, but your repeated utterance of "Occam's Razor" makes me think you really don't know much more about this topic than I do.
Why was melamine added to baby formula and pet food by Chinese companies?
The answer to me is cost. Adding that gak to those products increased profit for those companies at the expense of consumers. So why wouldn't recasters do the same thing? Is there something you can add to resin to make it cheaper but with the "minor" side effect of causing cancer in anyone who comes in contact with it? I don't know, which is why I was asking. But I am genuinely surprised that you wonder why I, or others, might question the ethics of a business built off of "borrowing" the designs and IP's of another company when it comes to the safety of the materials used by said company. Especially when said company is located in a country known for its lax consumer protection laws, all the while other manufacturers in that very same country has been found to add poisonous additives to products that are sold on mainstream markets. Not legally gray markets like our non-FW sources ply.
Regarding assumptions shouldn't Occam's Razor be applied to your hypothesis that these products are completely safe?
And, Sigvtar was good enough to share that their were higher toxicity levels in the products he tested. Granted, they weren't enough to make someone's hair fall out after their first exposure but to me that suggests that the materials should be scrutinized a bit more.
Genoside07 wrote: I have worked in plastic packaging manufacturing business for the last 20+ years so I know a few things about plastics; I personally don't know to many of you and have no way of stopping someone from hurting themselves. But how many of us really wear safety glasses, dust masks, rubber gloves, etc every single time we work with our miniatures? I am not saying every single knock off miniature will hurt you, but extended exposure to some chemicals can cause liver and/or kidney damage. And I am surprised to hear someone tested the materials, because when we send anything out to private labs it usually costs a few hundred dollars, enough to buy a ton forge world stuff. So is getting cheap miniatures worth it?? That's not my call.. Its all about want and need. But if someone is already breaking the law by counterfeiting; do you think they are insuring the resin is cured properly or safe materials are used?
Genoside07, excellent post. The bold part at the end sums up my suspicions perfectly.
Azreal13 wrote: Brook is specifically referring to their free shipping promotions, which over the last few years, while everyone else and his dog simply have a voucher code entry at the checkout, have required, at least under certain circumstances, people to fax their order through.
It is a thing.
Ah. That's pretty dumb.
Yeah, I should've been more specific, but that. I mean, when you checkout at the FW site, there is a voucher code box, but why must I call or fax them the code? It's just so stupid.
BrookM wrote: I mean, when you checkout at the FW site, there is a voucher code box, but why must I call or fax them the code? It's just so stupid.
Their site is somewhat dysfunctional. For example, they're limited to the number of bundles they can have on it so in order to introduce a new one they need to retire an old one. I can well imagine in that case they can only have so many voucher codes active at any one time.
Grey Templar wrote: 3-D printing will not replace casting for a long time. The printers are too expensive and too slow relative to molds to make creating detailed miniatures that way feasible.
It takes hours to make a single miniature with a 3-d printer. In that same period, I can cast dozens of models using a regular mold.
You would need to define "a long time."
I've worked with 3D Printing and Milling technologies for around 12 years now, and the newer technologies are becoming incredibly fast (with multiple cyclic print-heads that can lay down multiple layers a second).
And Stereolithography can be incredibly fast (but remains incredibly expensive, comparatively, to deposition printing methods).
But we have seen, in five years, the price of 3D printers fall to below $1,000 for .12mm resolution deposition printing, and below $5,000 for Stereolithography (with a very tiny print-tray).
And it is likely that within 5 years, we are going to see the same thing happen with scanners.
In five years, the technology will be inexpensive enough that th nature of piracy will have changed considerably.
For instance, with what I have available at the place where I am currently contracted, I have been extremely tempted to scan a bunch of 40K stuff, and then print it at 15mm size.... Since so many people want 15mm 40K, that isn't just a proxy.
MB
Even if the printer can make a Marine in a minute, I can cast 10 marines in about 2 minutes.
While you don't need mass production for personal use, that is still entering the realm of ridiculous expense because not everyone will have a 3-d printer capable of making this miniature of acceptable quality. And those who do will have just made the most expensive GW knockoffs ever.
Now they can, sort of, but they still take forever. And even if they manage to become fast enough to mass produce anything they'll remain complicated and expensive pieces of equipment. Molds will still be preferable forms of production.
We're not talking mass production though, we're talking being able to download and print a couple of dozen Space Marines for the home user, or even scan and replicate the same.
I agree, as a mass production method it's probably a significant time yet (if it ever becomes practical or necessary) but for the scale needed (both in terms of modelling scale and scope) for a hobbyist to, in effect, recast their own models, I think it is a lot closer.
As I mentioned above, thats entering the realm of prohibitively expensive. Even when everyone does have a 3-d printer in their home, its not going to be the top of the line model you'd need to get the detail required by 28mm miniatures. And if it is, you're making expensive toys with an even more absurdly expensive toy.
Hobbyists, not likely. Pets, or children, however...
But that would apply to normal models, and dozens of things in any household. I don't leave my models in reach of my pets, because I don't want my pets to eat them.
Aside from any potential toxicity issues, resin can break into incredibly sharp slivers which could do serious harm to a small child or dog if they chewed and swallowed them.
Not leaving your man dollies in reach of those that may chew them is just good practice.
Regarding assumptions shouldn't Occam's Razor be applied to your hypothesis that these products are completely safe?
I am applying it.
Resin is cheap, therefore it is reasonable to assume there is little motivation to cut it with something to make it bulk it out to make it go further.
You're right, I haven't tested it, I have no first hand knowledge of a recasting process, and whether they're simple garage operations or more sophisticated, but my assertion is simple why add something to make a cheap product go further and my only question is what would they add that would be cheaper than resin (because if it costs more, what's the point? Unless you think they wish to deliberately harm their customers,) still allow the resin to flow and cure as intended (accounting for the fact that many people cite the fact that quality is at, or above the original's standard, it cannot impede the function at all) and is toxic enough to pose a risk to health statistically above what resin may already carry due to fine particulate dust.
It just seems most logical to me that they're simply using resin....
Now they can, sort of, but they still take forever. And even if they manage to become fast enough to mass produce anything they'll remain complicated and expensive pieces of equipment. Molds will still be preferable forms of production.
We're not talking mass production though, we're talking being able to download and print a couple of dozen Space Marines for the home user, or even scan and replicate the same.
I agree, as a mass production method it's probably a significant time yet (if it ever becomes practical or necessary) but for the scale needed (both in terms of modelling scale and scope) for a hobbyist to, in effect, recast their own models, I think it is a lot closer.
As I mentioned above, thats entering the realm of prohibitively expensive. Even when everyone does have a 3-d printer in their home, its not going to be the top of the line model you'd need to get the detail required by 28mm miniatures. And if it is, you're making expensive toys with an even more absurdly expensive toy.
You're kind of jumping between your two points there.
My point was that in 3-5 years we could reasonably expect a 3D printer that is both reasonably costed and capable of sufficiently high quality for our purposes as hobbyists.
You're kind of using the drawbacks of now to argue against what may be in existence in a few years time.
The answer to me is cost. Adding that gak to those products increased profit for those companies at the expense of consumers. So why wouldn't recasters do the same thing? Is there something you can add to resin to make it cheaper but with the "minor" side effect of causing cancer in anyone who comes in contact with it? I don't know, which is why I was asking. But I am genuinely surprised that you wonder why I, or others, might question the ethics of a business built off of "borrowing" the designs and IP's of another company when it comes to the safety of the materials used by said company. Especially when said company is located in a country known for its lax consumer protection laws, all the while other manufacturers in that very same country has been found to add poisonous additives to products that are sold on mainstream markets. Not legally gray markets like our non-FW sources ply.
Regarding assumptions shouldn't Occam's Razor be applied to your hypothesis that these products are completely safe?
And, Sigvtar was good enough to share that their were higher toxicity levels in the products he tested. Granted, they weren't enough to make someone's hair fall out after their first exposure but to me that suggests that the materials should be scrutinized a bit more.
I've indulged in a bit of resin casting from time to time, and the process is reasonably simple. Most people who do it pick up their materials from a producer of such chemicals; I'd be extremely surprised to learn that a forgeworld recaster was actually synthesizing the resin and rubber compounds themselves for the process in their back rooms. What is more likely the case is that the recaster is purchasing the materials from somebody within China/Russia with which they make the molds/models.Which would actually weigh against the recaster getting substandard/modified resins if they can, simply because a substandard resin wouldn't cast as well, which would result in an inferior product, which would in turn result in damage to their customer base.
In other words, I would wager that beyond eating it, recast Forgeworld is not going to be any sort of health risk beyond that which normal resin causes. I would argue that the proof in the pudding is how forgeworld recasts have gone from, 'Cross your fingers and hope something shows up' to 'Jesus Christ, look at that melted face/moldlines' to 'Wow, this is better than Forgeworld!'. Many of the recasters who do it now have email distribution chains for their repeat customers now, because the business has reached a point whereby it is a solid, sustainable source of income to them. And naturally, like most businessmen, they want to capitalise on their investments (casting thousands of molds for a full GW catalogue is expensive and time consuming), and the best way to do that is to build a good reputation. In other words, good quality casts and good customer service. In some cases, they even accept returns or mail out missing components. Such people will not be deliberately using toxic chemicals that will harm their ability to sell in such a limited market.
This is not to say that it is impossible that some low grade recaster will buy some low grade tainted resin from some other place in China, dip it in enriched uranium for good measure, and send it out. But if you're savvy, deal with recasters who enourage repeat customers, and take proper care during preparation, there should be little to no risk that you can't see coming a mile off.
Can't remember the exact analysis, twas' a while ago. Toxicity levels weren't high, however, they were just slightly above the FW probe (1 piece). We were told that this does not necessarily mean that a completely different piece of resin was used, it could just as well be sloppy working. But in the end, we really didn't care What mattered / matters to us is that they are safe to use.
Hobbyists, not likely. Pets, or children, however...
But that would apply to normal models, and dozens of things in any household. I don't leave my models in reach of my pets, because I don't want my pets to eat them.
Aside from any potential toxicity issues, resin can break into incredibly sharp slivers which could do serious harm to a small child or dog if they chewed and swallowed them.
Not leaving your man dollies in reach of those that may chew them is just good practice.
Regarding assumptions shouldn't Occam's Razor be applied to your hypothesis that these products are completely safe?
I am applying it.
Resin is cheap, therefore it is reasonable to assume there is little motivation to cut it with something to make it bulk it out to make it go further.
You're right, I haven't tested it, I have no first hand knowledge of a recasting process, and whether they're simple garage operations or more sophisticated, but my assertion is simple why add something to make a cheap product go further and my only question is what would they add that would be cheaper than resin (because if it costs more, what's the point? Unless you think they wish to deliberately harm their customers,) still allow the resin to flow and cure as intended (accounting for the fact that many people cite the fact that quality is at, or above the original's standard, it cannot impede the function at all) and is toxic enough to pose a risk to health statistically above what resin may already carry due to fine particulate dust.
It just seems most logical to me that they're simply using resin....
We are just going in circles here. You think it is illogical for a company to risk potential harm to their customers in the name of profit (even though that happens all day every day). Fine. I think it is illogical to place trust in a company that is engaged in questionable business practices in a country known for bending or flat out ignoring safety regulations for the products they export.
I've indulged in a bit of resin casting from time to time, and the process is reasonably simple. Most people who do it pick up their materials from a producer of such chemicals; I'd be extremely surprised to learn that a forgeworld recaster was actually synthesizing the resin and rubber compounds themselves for the process in their back rooms. What is more likely the case is that the recaster is purchasing the materials from somebody within China/Russia with which they make the molds/models.Which would actually weigh against the recaster getting substandard/modified resins if they can, simply because a substandard resin wouldn't cast as well, which would result in an inferior product, which would in turn result in damage to their customer base.
In other words, I would wager that beyond eating it, recast Forgeworld is not going to be any sort of health risk beyond that which normal resin causes. I would argue that the proof in the pudding is how forgeworld recasts have gone from, 'Cross your fingers and hope something shows up' to 'Jesus Christ, look at that melted face/moldlines' to 'Wow, this is better than Forgeworld!'. Many of the recasters who do it now have email distribution chains for their repeat customers now, because the business has reached a point whereby it is a solid, sustainable source of income to them. And naturally, like most businessmen, they want to capitalise on their investments (casting thousands of molds for a full GW catalogue is expensive and time consuming), and the best way to do that is to build a good reputation. In other words, good quality casts and good customer service. In some cases, they even accept returns or mail out missing components. Such people will not be deliberately using toxic chemicals that will harm their ability to sell in such a limited market.
While I agree with you to a degree, the last statement is the sticking point for me.
How do you know? Are these underground recasting sites, which rely on word of mouth, e-mail chains, and posts on forums like 4chan because they cannot advertise in the mainstream, really thinking about long term growth of their customer base? Or are they milking a money making fad?
Ketara wrote: But if you're savvy, deal with re-casters who encourage repeat customers, and take proper care during preparation, there should be little to no risk that you can't see coming a mile off.
And ultimately if I have to twist myself into a pretzel to acquire "safe" knock offs, I'd rather just buy the legitimate thing.
Hobbyists, not likely. Pets, or children, however...
But that would apply to normal models, and dozens of things in any household. I don't leave my models in reach of my pets, because I don't want my pets to eat them.
Aside from any potential toxicity issues, resin can break into incredibly sharp slivers which could do serious harm to a small child or dog if they chewed and swallowed them.
Not leaving your man dollies in reach of those that may chew them is just good practice.
Regarding assumptions shouldn't Occam's Razor be applied to your hypothesis that these products are completely safe?
I am applying it.
Resin is cheap, therefore it is reasonable to assume there is little motivation to cut it with something to make it bulk it out to make it go further.
You're right, I haven't tested it, I have no first hand knowledge of a recasting process, and whether they're simple garage operations or more sophisticated, but my assertion is simple why add something to make a cheap product go further and my only question is what would they add that would be cheaper than resin (because if it costs more, what's the point? Unless you think they wish to deliberately harm their customers,) still allow the resin to flow and cure as intended (accounting for the fact that many people cite the fact that quality is at, or above the original's standard, it cannot impede the function at all) and is toxic enough to pose a risk to health statistically above what resin may already carry due to fine particulate dust.
It just seems most logical to me that they're simply using resin....
We are just going in circles here. You think it is illogical for a company to risk potential harm to their customers in the name of profit (even though that happens all day every day). Fine. I think it is illogical to place trust in a company that is engaged in questionable business practices in a country known for bending or flat out ignoring safety regulations for the products they export.
Not really circles, you're just responding to what you seem to think I've written rather than what I did. I have no trouble believing that someone of dubious morals in any country may substitute or supplement dangerous materials in a product in order to extend the amount they have to sell and make more profit.
What I'm saying is that, unlike say, cocaine, where the product is valuable enough that mixing in baby powder or rat poison or icing sugar or whatever makes sense from a commercial perspective, resin is cheap, so it makes no commercial sense to pad it out with other materials.
I'm not putting any moral or legal argument forward here, I'm saying that if I was selling an already cheap material, trying to make it go further with another cheap material seems pointless.
At the end of the day, you're free to hold your fears and concerns, whether legitimate or no, but unless someone can put forward a compelling argument for using something toxic in addition to or instead of simple resin, I'm not going to be persuaded they have any basis in fact.
Additionally, the recaster is the one mixing, pouring, and working with the resin. Wouldn't they themselves want to use a safe product due to their own extensive exposure?
Tannhauser42 wrote: Additionally, the recaster is the one mixing, pouring, and working with the resin. Wouldn't they themselves want to use a safe product due to their own extensive exposure?
Have you seen how leather is produced in low-rights countries?
Grey Templar wrote: 3-D printing will not replace casting for a long time. The printers are too expensive and too slow relative to molds to make creating detailed miniatures that way feasible.
It takes hours to make a single miniature with a 3-d printer. In that same period, I can cast dozens of models using a regular mold.
You would need to define "a long time."
I've worked with 3D Printing and Milling technologies for around 12 years now, and the newer technologies are becoming incredibly fast (with multiple cyclic print-heads that can lay down multiple layers a second).
And Stereolithography can be incredibly fast (but remains incredibly expensive, comparatively, to deposition printing methods).
But we have seen, in five years, the price of 3D printers fall to below $1,000 for .12mm resolution deposition printing, and below $5,000 for Stereolithography (with a very tiny print-tray).
And it is likely that within 5 years, we are going to see the same thing happen with scanners.
In five years, the technology will be inexpensive enough that th nature of piracy will have changed considerably.
For instance, with what I have available at the place where I am currently contracted, I have been extremely tempted to scan a bunch of 40K stuff, and then print it at 15mm size.... Since so many people want 15mm 40K, that isn't just a proxy.
MB
Even if the printer can make a Marine in a minute, I can cast 10 marines in about 2 minutes.
While you don't need mass production for personal use, that is still entering the realm of ridiculous expense because not everyone will have a 3-d printer capable of making this miniature of acceptable quality. And those who do will have just made the most expensive GW knockoffs ever.
Now they can, sort of, but they still take forever. And even if they manage to become fast enough to mass produce anything they'll remain complicated and expensive pieces of equipment. Molds will still be preferable forms of production.
We're not talking mass production though, we're talking being able to download and print a couple of dozen Space Marines for the home user, or even scan and replicate the same.
I agree, as a mass production method it's probably a significant time yet (if it ever becomes practical or necessary) but for the scale needed (both in terms of modelling scale and scope) for a hobbyist to, in effect, recast their own models, I think it is a lot closer.
As I mentioned above, thats entering the realm of prohibitively expensive. Even when everyone does have a 3-d printer in their home, its not going to be the top of the line model you'd need to get the detail required by 28mm miniatures. And if it is, you're making expensive toys with an even more absurdly expensive toy.
Are you old enough to remember the 1970s, or 1980s when the Cassette Tape and CD were invented?
When the Cassette first came out, they were then the equivalent of around $100 a piece in today's money. CDs were even more expensive.
And people complained that they would never have the quality needed to replace vinyl or Reel-to-reel, for the "real" music affectionados.
And people complained that the time it took to burn a CD meant that people would never adopt them for home use.
A 3D printer that is just a few hundred dollars isn't a "luxury' any more than is a 2D printer that costs $500 now (Professional printers cost even more, but they are almost all under $1,000, unless they have huge print heads).
Rep-rap, Makers Faire, and others producing lower resolution printers have them for around $250 now, with a .12mm resolution.
And that resolution is effectively halving every two years.
That means that by 2020, you will be able to get a printer for about $200 that has a resolution high enough to print miniatures (.03mm).
And for a little more than that, you can have one that can print to a .0001mm resolution, by 2020.
And I seriously doubt you can cast, in resin, 20 miniatures in 20 seconds.
Resins tend to take a few hours of time to set hard enough to remove from the mold.
And quality control would demand even more time that this.
Not to mention that with a multiple cyclic head, you could print not one, but around 100 miniatures on a print bed that was 64-square inches to one square foot every second.
Currently, a printer like one used at Shaeways can print around 2400 miniatures in around 15 to 20 minutes on the print bed of one of their medium sized machines.
It might not replace many forms of mass production at once.
But it will provide a means of severely affecting the way manufacturers work, when their products can be "pirated" in not just one way, but many.
While I agree with you to a degree, the last statement is the sticking point for me.
How do you know? Are these underground recasting sites, which rely on word of mouth, e-mail chains, and posts on forums like 4chan because they cannot advertise in the mainstream, really thinking about long term growth of their customer base? Or are they milking a money making fad?
A fair question.
I think the answer lies in the fact that certain recasters have invested substantial sums of money in setting up the casting apparatus, and creating literally thousands of molds. It's simply too much of a risk for them to be a fly by night operation. The costs of production are low enough that they can already turn a quite substantial profit using materials of a similar quality to Forgeworld. Why risk absolutely everything to shave an extra two dollars of profit for every hundred dollar transaction when you're already making a seventy dollar profit?
To reinforce that reasoning, any recaster could just send out terrible casts of the highest grossing items, take the money and run. So why do certain recasters take the time and effort to make sure that they have good quality, or offer a returns or missing parts policy? The answer is that those people have decided that amassing a contacts list and selling on the basis of good quality/customer service ultimately makes more money than a fly by night operation. And if that's the reasoning being followed, it would make absolutely no sense to poison and drive away your customers to save a few bucks.
And ultimately if I have to twist myself into a pretzel to acquire "safe" knock offs, I'd rather just buy the legitimate thing.
Certainly. To you right now, acquiring the necessary information to get the best recasts would require an investment of time and hassle that you simply cannot be bothered with. So the price differential is less of an issue for you, as you value your time more than your money.
In someone else's shoes who does know the market though, you'll find that they spend no more time than you do in ordering, and save the money to boot. It all ultimately comes down to your level of experience and knowledge in these things, and whether or not you are willing to put that initial legwork in to acquire it.
Resin is a petroleum based product so the price depends on what the market price of oil is;
Resin is naturally clear,so color needs to be added, most plastics have a "cookie recipe" of may types components used in the process.
If they are using one type resin then it is pre blended.So if they are buy it in China also; I am sure they are not getting a Certificate of Analysis saying what it truly is
There is a number of additives that can migrate to the surface days after the product is produced and mold release agents could also be something bad;
So remember kids to wash your miniatures and for some gamers "yourself" also.
Games Workshop is having enough trouble with their odd ball business practices and War Machine kicking their but in the market place; Just don't want my dwindling fellow 40k players
doing something that could endanger themselves without realizing it.
You'll note that nowhere in my statement did I address YOU, personally. I simply observed the jingoistic attitude expressed through the comment;
*snip*
I currently don't have the time to waste responding to your whole post but in the interest of addressing this point. You quoted me directly and said "What a completely jingoistic idea to express."
That is just stupid. For one, if that's not addressing me personally then you need to work on your communications skills. For two, it's not jingoist to discuss the merits of ONE particular aspect of a culture and it's not jingoist to point out the fact that no, nothing will change unless the culture changes (and cultures do change, value systems do change). I'll also point out the fact that I'm fully aware that even western culture for a large part thinks piracy/copyright infringement is fine. Jingoism also implies a level of nationalism which makes it an ignorant statement to make without actually knowing the background of the people you are talking to.
Now maybe I'm wrong in preferring the idea that a customer supports the person who actually created the art instead of the person who can copy it for the lowest price, fine, say that. Don't imply someone is fething jingoist for discussing the merits of ONE aspect of western culture that I'd hardly consider a strong aspect anyway. It's insulting just as much as it would be insulting to call someone unpatriotic for them pointing out an aspect of their own culture that they don't like.
We are advanced enough of a society to discuss the topics themselves without ignorantly lumping people under ill considered labels.
You'll note that nowhere in my statement did I address YOU, personally. I simply observed the jingoistic attitude expressed through the comment;
*snip*
I currently don't have the time to waste responding to your whole post but in the interest of addressing this point. You quoted me directly and said "What a completely jingoistic idea to express."
That is just stupid. For one, if that's not addressing me personally then you need to work on your communications skills. For two, it's not jingoist to discuss the merits of ONE particular aspect of a culture and it's not jingoist to point out the fact that no, nothing will change unless the culture changes (and cultures do change, value systems do change). I'll also point out the fact that I'm fully aware that even western culture for a large part thinks piracy/copyright infringement is fine. Jingoism also implies a level of nationalism which makes it an ignorant statement to make without actually knowing the background of the people you are talking to.
Now maybe I'm wrong in preferring the idea that a customer supports the person who actually created the art instead of the person who can copy it for the lowest price, fine, say that. Don't imply someone is fething jingoist for discussing the merits of ONE aspect of western culture that I'd hardly consider a strong aspect anyway. It's insulting just as much as it would be insulting to call someone unpatriotic for them pointing out an aspect of their own culture that they don't like.
We are advanced enough of a society to discuss the topics themselves without ignorantly lumping people under ill considered labels.
I'm sorry if you are unable to separate an idea that is commonly expressed from a personal attack, but that is literally what I wrote. I stated that the idea presented was insulting in that it insinuates that an entire culture need change for someone to be more comfortable with said culture. If the concept is one that you, personally, hold so dear that you take a comment about the idea as a personal attack, then I feel sorry for you. Instead of flying off the handle, you could have simply stated that I misunderstood your comment, if that were the case. I'm not perfect, misunderstandings happen, I would have apologized and moved on.
Out of curiosity, which ONE part of your culture that outsiders might find reprehensible are you willing to change so that they are more comfortable in their interactions with you? Someone from China reading this discussion could find yours and other comments insulting but you don't seem overly concerned about that.
I have not labeled you. I labeled a statement by you. Just as one off-color comment does not make someone racist or sexist (or any -ist); I made no assumptions about you, personally because I don't know you. Your comment could very well be a throw-away or you could be spoiling for a fight just for kicks, I don't know which is why I addressed the comment, not you personally. Whatever the case, you seem to have convinced yourself that an attack has taken place and that is just not true.
Even if my comment was directed at you; are you so caring of what a random stranger types on the internet that it gets you so riled that you feel the need for harsh language (I.e. "fething")? My advice, hit the ignore user button and move on instead of letting the internet get you so mad.
Anyway, I've tried to explain; you appear to be dead set on taking umbrage that I dislike the fact that certain groups expect the world to change to fit their little idea of what it should!d look like (whether you share that opinion or not). Moving on.
Azreal13 wrote: I'm not putting any moral or legal argument forward here, I'm saying that if I was selling an already cheap material, trying to make it go further with another cheap material seems pointless.
At the end of the day, you're free to hold your fears and concerns, whether legitimate or no, but unless someone can put forward a compelling argument for using something toxic in addition to or instead of simple resin, I'm not going to be persuaded they have any basis in fact.
The problem I have with your argument is that it assumes good business practices for people who are engaged in illegal operations. Surely we can agree that the recasters are motivated by profit or else they wouldn't be using the "easy" method of producing miniatures by stealing the designs of another company to sell on the black market. Instead they'd sculpt and develop their own products to sell and get into the miniatures market the "hard" way.
So, if the recasters are motivated by profit, and there is a way to increase that profit by cutting corners in material safety***, why wouldn't they take it? That is my point. You seem so willing to assume that people who are morally loose in their business practices still take customer safety into consideration when choosing the materials they work with. I assume the opposite. Given a chance to squeeze a few more pennies out of a batch of resin, a counterfeiter will do so because they are not accountable to their customers like a traditional business is. Hence we are going in circles. You think it is clearly obvious they wouldn't do something that I see no reason why they wouldn't be doing.
*** This is a major component of the problem regarding the counterfeiters. I came to this thread asking for information regarding which (if any) products could be introduced to resin to extend its use, and no one seemed to have an answer. Perhaps that is good in that there isn't anything that could be added to resin which makes it more dangerous while also extending its use or otherwise making it more profitable. However, just because this small community on Dakka hasn't been able to satisfactorily answer the question does not mean that such a product doesn't exist. So, for me, that is strike one for your argument.
We also have Sigvtar's experience testing resin which did come from a recaster and it demonstrated slightly higher toxicity levels. Again, this could be nothing, or it could be something. There isn't enough information to satisfy my concerns. However, your repeated attempts to assuage my concerns with appeals to good business sense on the part of recasters is comical to me given what little we do know about recasters and given the nature of their business. Strike two.
Finally, there is the well documented cases of major companies in China using materials that were found to be poisonous for the end users. Since the issues above could not be satisfactorily addressed, this becomes strike three for me. Given the cultural business climate in China where even their own citizens distrust the products made there I have no faith in the materials used to make knock off Forge World models.
So, I'll continue to be "scared" and you can continue to buy from the back alley vendors of the internet, and we can go on our merry way. However, this thread did nothing for me other than add to my skepticism about the safety of the counterfeit gaming products coming out of China.
It does not assume good business practices, it assumes the most fundamental understanding of the most basic business concept is sell for the most money possible, make for the least.
If there were any sort of credible alternative to resin that offered a saving and was highly toxic, but still allowed the production of miniatures to the quality reported, then I'd say you have a point. We have people here on Dakka who cast in a commercial or semi commercial basis, as well as for hobby purposes, and I've spent at least a little time investigating it as a result of this and similar thread, and found nothing that poses any significant risk once the resin is cured. Nearly all the risk is during the casting process itself.
The "slightly more toxic" results are such that Sigvtar seems happy to have them around his children, so I'm guessing that's very much on the nothing end of the something/nothing spectrum.
As it stands, I'll continue to believe that you're letting irrational fears cloud your judgment, and the fact that this thread has heightened your skepticism despite the only anecdotal and evidential information leaning towards the more positive in regards to safety merely underlines that.
If the recast stuff was really toxic then we would hear it by now. Is it more toxic than the lead miniatures i used as a kid?
Especially when Chinese sites like alie express is closing the sellers who sell recast so these people have to sell via mailing list and if they would be dodgy they would lose most of their customers.
Grey Templar wrote: Even if the miniatures are toxic, there are many common household items which are far more poisonous. Don't ever mix ammonia and bleach for example.
The problem with this logic is that no one is selling kits of ammonia and bleach meant to be handled and touched and played with. The two chemicals are sold separately and have clear warnings about handling and usage and are very regulated.
Those products (at least in the states) are all VERY clearly warning labeled. I highly doubt the same can be said of a toxic quality resin recasters product (which is not to say all recasters use such).
This is akin to saying "Even if wolves bite people, Golden Retrievers bite more people than wolves do each year, so i don't see the problem with owning wolves as pets." The logic suffers from the fact that the reason why Golden Retrievers bite more people than wolves is that there are way more of them in areas that people also inhabit. Your statement basically says "There's lots of more dangerous stuff around most houses, what's the big deal".
The thing is that the consumer is informed of that, taught how to potentially mitigate issues, and there's a warning label indicating what to do in case of exposure. Not so of recasters product more than likely.
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Jehan-reznor wrote: If the recast stuff was really toxic then we would hear it by now. Is it more toxic than the lead miniatures i used as a kid?
Especially when Chinese sites like alie express is closing the sellers who sell recast so these people have to sell via mailing list and if they would be dodgy they would lose most of their customers.
Resin has known carcinogenic properties, particularly if inhaled as particulate. We have heard about this. It's why anyone who knows what they're talking about when talking about cutting, filing, sanding, or otherwise working with resin being broken or manipulated in any way that produces particulate recommends ventilated space and a dust mask.
Even good quality resin has this issue. Most epoxy, polyurethane, and polyester resins have MDS sheets that contain known or suspected carcinogens like epochlorohydrin and other fun stuff in it like fibreglass, styrene, and isocyanate. Some of these have MDS exposure limits of as little as .005 parts per million safe exposure per 8 hour period. Note too that isocyanate can be inhaled, or exposure can happen via skin contact.
Isocyanate is not an acute danger ; it's a culmulative one. It gets in your blood, and your body literally cannot process it or get rid of it. When a threshold of isocyanate is crossed (which depends on a variety of factor), you basically develop a permanent allergy to most types of plastics producing flu and pneumonia like symptoms for a period of time after contact with plastics containing polyurethane or poly-blends. This *never* goes away.
Just saying, resin being stuff you shouldn't screw around with if you don't know what you're doing is nothing new. Use a dust mask at least, respirator if possible, and use gloves that go up past the wrist when working with this stuff.
Haight wrote: Resin has known carcinogenic properties, particularly if inhaled as particulate. We have heard about this. It's why anyone who knows what they're talking about when talking about cutting, filing, sanding, or otherwise working with resin being broken or manipulated in any way that produces particulate recommends ventilated space and a dust mask.
But isn't this just the same problem with dust in general, regardless of whether it's from plastic or resin or wood or any other thing you're cutting/sanding/grinding/etc?
and use gloves that go up past the wrist when working with this stuff.
Could you explain this in more detail? Is this actually a necessary safety measure for the average hobbyist (IOW, not spending 8 hours a day handling resin), or is it just paranoia? Because this is honestly the first time I've ever seen anyone suggest wearing gloves because it's bad to touch resin models. And you would think that if this is really a legitimate risk the manufacturers would be required to include some kind of warning.
Jehan-reznor wrote: If the recast stuff was really toxic then we would hear it by now. Is it more toxic than the lead miniatures i used as a kid?
Especially when Chinese sites like alie express is closing the sellers who sell recast so these people have to sell via mailing list and if they would be dodgy they would lose most of their customers.
Resin has known carcinogenic properties, particularly if inhaled as particulate. We have heard about this. It's why anyone who knows what they're talking about when talking about cutting, filing, sanding, or otherwise working with resin being broken or manipulated in any way that produces particulate recommends ventilated space and a dust mask.
Even good quality resin has this issue. Most epoxy, polyurethane, and polyester resins have MDS sheets that contain known or suspected carcinogens like epochlorohydrin and other fun stuff in it like fibreglass, styrene, and isocyanate. Some of these have MDS exposure limits of as little as .005 parts per million safe exposure per 8 hour period. Note too that isocyanate can be inhaled, or exposure can happen via skin contact.
Isocyanate is not an acute danger ; it's a culmulative one. It gets in your blood, and your body literally cannot process it or get rid of it. When a threshold of isocyanate is crossed (which depends on a variety of factor), you basically develop a permanent allergy to most types of plastics producing flu and pneumonia like symptoms for a period of time after contact with plastics containing polyurethane or poly-blends. This *never* goes away.
Just saying, resin being stuff you shouldn't screw around with if you don't know what you're doing is nothing new. Use a dust mask at least, respirator if possible, and use gloves that go up past the wrist when working with this stuff.
All good advice, if you're casting with the stuff.
Handling cured resin carries none of these risks.
There's not even strong evidence I can find that resin dust is carcinogenic, it is possible, and inhaling quantities of any fine particulate is never a good idea, so caution is advisable, but that isn't simply the case with resins of dubious provenance.
Grey Templar wrote: Even if the miniatures are toxic, there are many common household items which are far more poisonous. Don't ever mix ammonia and bleach for example.
The problem with this logic is that no one is selling kits of ammonia and bleach meant to be handled and touched and played with. The two chemicals are sold separately and have clear warnings about handling and usage and are very regulated.
While that is true, wargaming miniatures are NOT toys. They're not handled in a way which would lead to someone getting poisoned through normal use. They're also not toxic enough to warrant any labeling or special regulation like bleach or ammonia.
And a kid is far more likely to injure himself by swallowing small parts than to get poisoned by the miniature.
Haight wrote: Resin has known carcinogenic properties, particularly if inhaled as particulate. We have heard about this. It's why anyone who knows what they're talking about when talking about cutting, filing, sanding, or otherwise working with resin being broken or manipulated in any way that produces particulate recommends ventilated space and a dust mask.
But isn't this just the same problem with dust in general, regardless of whether it's from plastic or resin or wood or any other thing you're cutting/sanding/grinding/etc?
and use gloves that go up past the wrist when working with this stuff.
Could you explain this in more detail? Is this actually a necessary safety measure for the average hobbyist (IOW, not spending 8 hours a day handling resin), or is it just paranoia? Because this is honestly the first time I've ever seen anyone suggest wearing gloves because it's bad to touch resin models. And you would think that if this is really a legitimate risk the manufacturers would be required to include some kind of warning.
Normal dust isn't harmful even if you breathe it in moderate amounts, you'll cough, you'll sputter, but your lungs will expel it. Resin dust particulate is much harder, if not impossible for your lungs to expel. I'm not sure on sawdust, i know it's not good for you, but i don't think its cancerous, but i could be wrong (not a carpenter).
Re the gloves, think Lysol house cleaning gloves that go up past the forearm, and you're on the right track. You don't need walt white chemical grade rubber gloves, just whatever is going to keep you from breathing the stuff in / not getting it on your skin.
It's not bad to touch resin models, but it can be bad to touch some bare resin made of certain types, and its absolutely bad to touch resins in their constituent parts that are uncured or curing. Resins using isocyanates are most dangerous when curing, but are still dangerous once cured. GW finecast / Forgeworld are non isocyanate resins. You can't be sure that's the case with a recaster. Isocyanate resin is also dirt ass cheap.
Jehan-reznor wrote: If the recast stuff was really toxic then we would hear it by now. Is it more toxic than the lead miniatures i used as a kid?
Especially when Chinese sites like alie express is closing the sellers who sell recast so these people have to sell via mailing list and if they would be dodgy they would lose most of their customers.
Resin has known carcinogenic properties, particularly if inhaled as particulate. We have heard about this. It's why anyone who knows what they're talking about when talking about cutting, filing, sanding, or otherwise working with resin being broken or manipulated in any way that produces particulate recommends ventilated space and a dust mask.
Even good quality resin has this issue. Most epoxy, polyurethane, and polyester resins have MDS sheets that contain known or suspected carcinogens like epochlorohydrin and other fun stuff in it like fibreglass, styrene, and isocyanate. Some of these have MDS exposure limits of as little as .005 parts per million safe exposure per 8 hour period. Note too that isocyanate can be inhaled, or exposure can happen via skin contact.
Isocyanate is not an acute danger ; it's a culmulative one. It gets in your blood, and your body literally cannot process it or get rid of it. When a threshold of isocyanate is crossed (which depends on a variety of factor), you basically develop a permanent allergy to most types of plastics producing flu and pneumonia like symptoms for a period of time after contact with plastics containing polyurethane or poly-blends. This *never* goes away.
Just saying, resin being stuff you shouldn't screw around with if you don't know what you're doing is nothing new. Use a dust mask at least, respirator if possible, and use gloves that go up past the wrist when working with this stuff.
All good advice, if you're casting with the stuff.
Handling cured resin carries none of these risks.
There's not even strong evidence I can find that resin dust is carcinogenic, it is possible, and inhaling quantities of any fine particulate is never a good idea, so caution is advisable, but that isn't simply the case with resins of dubious provenance.
Handling cured isocyanate resin is harmful.
As for "strong evidence", look up the MDS on any resin. The dust will contain known and suspected carcinogens of the resin. If you inhale this, and cannot expel it, you have inhaled a carcinogen. Ditto with inhaled vapors, and skin vector absorption.
Remember; the overarching point here is that you can't be sure what a recaster is using. If they are using very very cheap poly, poly blend, or other resin with Isocyanate in it, its a rather large culmulative risk of weird health ailments and possibly cancer.
I wouldn't want to take the risk personally. Not to save a hundred bucks or so on a forgeworld product. Just me.
People who work with resin in large, commercial or industrial, scales every day for their working lives are at risk.
Hobbyists, except perhaps for one or two outliers and maybe some very busy commission painters (who are probably not likely to buy from China one would assume) aren't ever likely to be exposed in sufficient amounts for it to make a meaningful statistical impact to their health.
It's like saying if I smoke one cigarette, I'm statistically more likely to contract lung cancer, probably true, but not to the point i realistically need to be concerned.
That's based on the assumption, of course, that the product I'm using is toxic and I'm exposed to it sufficiently to make any impact.
That doesn't seem a high enough risk to be worth worrying about in proportion to the money to be saved. Just me.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, you do realise even the likes of Dulux (a large paint manufacturer) use isocyanate type polyurethane resins in their products?
It isn't really some dodgy back street product, and poses no greater risk than any other improperly handled chemical.
Totally! Yeah i'm not trying to bang the drum that if you pick up your unpainted finecast Draigo, you're hand will melt off by the end of your turn.
But there IS a risk, and people's tolerances for blood bound isocyanate sensitivity varies wildly. But it's better to be informed about things than just say "meh, what's the harm". There is a harm ; its up to each individual to gauge it. Your smoking analogy is an excellent one (as long as we ignore the addiction vector) : light one butt up ? You're probably not going to develop CPOD, Lung Cancer, or heart disease. The same cannot be said for, 20 years later, the 200,000th one.
Yes. And i totally realize that isocyanates have safe uses. They are used with chemicals that stop them from vaporizing, or molecularly halt the process by which they are vaporized (and thus inhaled), or bind them so they cannot be absorbed through the skin.
I would be willing to bet a re-caster using isocyanates is probably not doing the same.
But surely, the isocyanate is used as a catalyst and once the reaction is done, becomes inert? Or at least, cannot vaporise because it is bound in the resin?
I guess there's scope for it to cure improperly, but then it would obviously be weird gunk, rather than the material we are used to?
I'd be more inclined to worry about something unpleasant being used as a release, but unless it's really nasty, normal prep should deal with that.
The form the epichlorohydrin you link to is used in the production of epoxy resins hasn't been proven carcinogenic either,
While some concerns have been raised in the last three decades it is actually used in the production of food packaging, so I'm fairly confident, in this form, handling models made with it is likely safe.
Haight wrote: Resin dust particulate is much harder, if not impossible for your lungs to expel. I'm not sure on sawdust, i know it's not good for you, but i don't think its cancerous, but i could be wrong (not a carpenter).
I can't find a clear source right now, but IIRC sawdust can also be a health issue in large enough quantities. But the main point was that resin dust isn't some kind of unique threat. Unless you've got some information that I'm not aware of the risk from resin dust is entirely due to it being dust of a particular size range, not the material it's made out of. Similar dust from sawing/sanding/etc plastic or metal models is exactly the same risk.
It's not bad to touch resin models, but it can be bad to touch some bare resin made of certain types, and its absolutely bad to touch resins in their constituent parts that are uncured or curing. Resins using isocyanates are most dangerous when curing, but are still dangerous once cured. GW finecast / Forgeworld are non isocyanate resins. You can't be sure that's the case with a recaster. Isocyanate resin is also dirt ass cheap.
Ok, that answers my question then. Models from GW (and presumably every other legitimate manufacturer) aren't a problem and you don't need to worry about gloves, this is just a "who knows what might be in it" risk with recasters.
As for "strong evidence", look up the MDS on any resin. The dust will contain known and suspected carcinogens of the resin. If you inhale this, and cannot expel it, you have inhaled a carcinogen. Ditto with inhaled vapors, and skin vector absorption.
Sure, but the MSDS is aimed at industrial use of the materials, not hobby uses. Obviously the component chemicals used in making a resin model are dangerous, and it's probably not a good idea to spend eight hours a day working in an environment full of resin dust without a mask. But risks that are relevant in an industrial context aren't necessarily relevant in a hobby context where you're only handling small amounts of the finished product and only for relatively short periods of time.
Haight wrote: Resin dust particulate is much harder, if not impossible for your lungs to expel. I'm not sure on sawdust, i know it's not good for you, but i don't think its cancerous, but i could be wrong (not a carpenter).
I can't find a clear source right now, but IIRC sawdust can also be a health issue in large enough quantities. But the main point was that resin dust isn't some kind of unique threat. Unless you've got some information that I'm not aware of the risk from resin dust is entirely due to it being dust of a particular size range, not the material it's made out of. Similar dust from sawing/sanding/etc plastic or metal models is exactly the same risk.
It's not bad to touch resin models, but it can be bad to touch some bare resin made of certain types, and its absolutely bad to touch resins in their constituent parts that are uncured or curing. Resins using isocyanates are most dangerous when curing, but are still dangerous once cured. GW finecast / Forgeworld are non isocyanate resins. You can't be sure that's the case with a recaster. Isocyanate resin is also dirt ass cheap.
Ok, that answers my question then. Models from GW (and presumably every other legitimate manufacturer) aren't a problem and you don't need to worry about gloves, this is just a "who knows what might be in it" risk with recasters.
As for "strong evidence", look up the MDS on any resin. The dust will contain known and suspected carcinogens of the resin. If you inhale this, and cannot expel it, you have inhaled a carcinogen. Ditto with inhaled vapors, and skin vector absorption.
Sure, but the MSDS is aimed at industrial use of the materials, not hobby uses. Obviously the component chemicals used in making a resin model are dangerous, and it's probably not a good idea to spend eight hours a day working in an environment full of resin dust without a mask. But risks that are relevant in an industrial context aren't necessarily relevant in a hobby context where you're only handling small amounts of the finished product and only for relatively short periods of time.
Hitting the points in order, because multi-person quotes are a pain in the butt. I'm kind of responding to both You, Peregrine, and Azreal, so if something doesn't specifically seem to apply to one, it's probably in response to the other. Just to be clear. I tried to "quote tag" this up properly, but screwed it all up.
Yes, any old dust can be harmful. However sawdust in and of itself is not carcinogenic in addition to being dust. So these hard plastic / resin / etc particulates that get into your lungs and you can't expel have all the issues of normal particulate dust like sawdust, or drywall sanding particulate, etc., but those raw materials don't cause cancer. Sawdust inhaled might give you some reaction, but it won't cause a buildup in your blood of a known agent that causes chemical sensitivity / allergy, and contributes to cancer. As to the sufficient quantities, careful of being assuaged by this: Vitamin C in high enough concentrations can kill you. Hyperbolic and anecdotal on purpose ; the point is that "sufficient quantities" is different for every substance.
Correct. I would not fear Forgeworld, nor i assume, GW finecast. Past normal care type stuff, i wouldn't be worried. Haven't seen the same for Finecast, but i'd assume it's the same. I would still recommend wearing at least a dust mask when snapping / cutting / filing / sanding these substances.
Isocyanates are not just for industrial use, and the catalyst process does not render the isocyanates completely inert, it does not consume the isocyanate in the curing process completely (though i will 100% admit, the greatest harmful affect is inhalation of isocyanates in currently curing batch of poly or poly blend resin). Epichlorohydrin also persists through the process of lots of poly or poly blend resin. To the best of my knowledge Forgeworld does not use Epicholrohydrin in their resins. They use a type of resin that is rated as "no exposure limit" to the isocyanates in their resin, and this is probably due to a counter-action agent that makes skin absorption impossible (much like the aforementioned paint).
Epichlorohydrin is strongly suspected of being carcinogenic, and the articles i posted both admit that its a possible carcinogen used in food packaging / production. The amount of epichlorohydrin used in food and packaging for food has decreased by a huge amount since it was discovered to be possibly carcinogenic as well. As i mentioned, these are not the only two ... there's other nasty stuff in resin too. Point being is that there's a LOT of icky stuff in toxic resin concentrated into one substance. So sure you might say "Hey my tater-tots have packaging that has Epi in it, and i'm fine and i love me my tater tots". True. HOwever that tatertot bag probably doesn't have it in the concentration the resin does for one, and for another that bag doesn't also have Isocyanates in it, and about 4-6 other worrying compounds in it as well.
MDS is also not just aimed at industrial, but i see what you mean. They are all over the place at my work, and we're not "industrial", we're in construction. I have to go through an OSHA mandated MDS training every year. If you work in a largish company, you probably have an MDS book on site that you were shown on the first day of work where it was, and summarily have never thought of again. The problem is some of these chemicals have exposure limits of .005 parts per million (ppm) per eight hours. That is and *incredibly* small. It's within the window of "probably don't ever want to be exposed to this, ever, if i can possibly help it".
Remember too that some of these compounds continue to give off gaseous emissions even after the curing process. Direct skin to material contact is not necessarily required. My gaming storage closet is right behind my computer in my office. I spent a lot of time gaming, and on my computer. If the models behind me were giving off VOC's, i'd probably be having respiratory problems.
Anywho... like i said, though i'm engaging in point and counterpoint, the overarching point is that the stuff we know from trusted sources is overwhelmingly safe more than likely (again, i still recommend a dust mask when causing any breakage at all - cutting, sawing, filing...), but there's a ton of really cheap toxic as hell materials out there. It's a risk one should be aware. You can decide it's small enough that you're not concerned, but it is a risk. I'm just not comfortable buying a potentially health impacting product from someone that has no impetus to abide by any health and safety regulations.
I just think it's important that we're honest about the risk rather than writing it off (or by contrast getting all OMAHGAAWD, CANSUH-AIDS! by proxy. Taking an anti-vaxxer tact is just as bad.).
But even if recasters are using hazardous types of resin you aren't going to be exposed in high enough amounts to put yourself at significant cancer risk.
Unless you grind your models up and inhale all the dust you aren't in any danger. Sunbathing on a beach will be more harmful in the long term.
One thing I collect in addition to miniatures are Transformers. Mostly the higher end Masterpiece stuff, which can run anywhere fro $250- $500 here in Aus. And again, China has started providing knock off versions of these high priced items. But not only are they providing them at significantly reduced prices, or at qualities that render them nearly impossible to distinguish from the originals, in several cases they're actually improving them.
The answer to me is cost. Adding that gak to those products increased profit for those companies at the expense of consumers. So why wouldn't recasters do the same thing? Is there something you can add to resin to make it cheaper but with the "minor" side effect of causing cancer in anyone who comes in contact with it? I don't know, which is why I was asking. But I am genuinely surprised that you wonder why I, or others, might question the ethics of a business built off of "borrowing" the designs and IP's of another company when it comes to the safety of the materials used by said company. Especially when said company is located in a country known for its lax consumer protection laws, all the while other manufacturers in that very same country has been found to add poisonous additives to products that are sold on mainstream markets. Not legally gray markets like our non-FW sources ply.
I've been trading through this thread, and the biggest reason I can think of why recasters might not be adding cheaper, "more toxic" filler to their resin is because they actually have to work with the stuff, cast the stuff, remould the figures and package them. They'd be having a lot more direct daily contact with that stuff than their customers will (who you'd assume will be priming, painting and then varnishing them - adding layers between the resin and their handling it, and then putting it in a case or on a shelf - as opposed to maybe wearing gloves, but working with the stuff daily. Since recasters pretty much seem to be really small operations, with just a few people or 1-man shows - as opposed to an overlord in an office with a factory floor below, then it'd be ...ill advised to "cut" their resin with toxic waste, etc.
As for the guy who said that his grot tanks stunk of some sort of solvents. Obviously I can't smell his binned tanks, but my plastic tub of FW stuff stinks when I open it up, as do my "non-toxic" citadel and vallejo paints, as do my Maxmini, Kromlech, Puppetswar models. Resin stinks, regardless of where you get it from - especially when it's in a sealed or closed environment.
Yup, especially if they've been put in the case only after a short time from the paint drying. If they haven't aired for a significant amount of time, the vapors will sink into the case itself and the model will only release the vapors slowly.
Azreal13 wrote: That's a slightly flawed comparison, it would be more like
"I can buy a book printing and binding machine for $50 and I still don't produce my own books."
I would totally do that if the prices and quality were affordable. 3d printers and scanners in 5-10 years? I'll certainly be looking forward to what I can do with my old models (for my own use, of course)!
Grey Templar wrote: But even if recasters are using hazardous types of resin you aren't going to be exposed in high enough amounts to put yourself at significant cancer risk.
Unless you grind your models up and inhale all the dust you aren't in any danger. Sunbathing on a beach will be more harmful in the long term.
This is not accurate if you read any of the MDS stuff i posted on some of these materials. You keep saying these things, but if you understood chemical exposure at all, it's not. The exposure limits and ppm exposure rates for some of the cheaper, more readily available resins out there are small enough with miniatures.
I'm not sure you realize just how small .005 ppm exposure limit over 8 hours is. There is absolutely no comparison to UV light from sunlight for many reasons. First, one is a type of energy radiation, the other is chemical exposure. Another is you are getting WAY more, if we loosely find a way to compare UV exposure to ppm chemical exposure, UV exposure than chemicals. Which is fine, because the exposure limits of UV light to some of these chemicals is way higher.
You can say "All this is well and good, but I don't care". THat's valid, i can't refute that. However you are incorrect when you keep using these baseless analogies for comparison.
I will give you a couple "for instance". I deal with a lot of air quality emissions equipment in my line of work (construction, focusing heavily on MEP - mechanical, electrical, plumbing). One thing i work with a lot is heat delivery and recovery systems, so i deal iwth a lot of fossil fuel burning systems. Burners using LP or NG gas.
Air quality codes in most states require that the NOx (mono nitrogens, Nitric Oxide, and Nitrogen Dioxide) emissions at anywhere between sub 9 parts per million (9 ppm) in the most strict zones in the most strict states (Zones under South Coast Quality Air Management District act, and the Texas Air Code Comission in refinery country), to about sub 20 parts per million in built up metropolitan smog ridden areas (and fair being fair, there are areas with no NOx emissions rules).
So what they are saying is their threshold for clean air in the strictest places is: .000009% of the emissions given off by the burner can be NOx. For the less strict places, .000020%.
So what does .005 ppm mean ? What the MDS sheet on these chems is saying is that "safe" expsoure to untreated isocyanates is 5/100ths of 1 part per million per 8 hour period. Or .0000000005 parts per million.
That's ridiculously small. You might as well say "if these things contain any of it all, you're hitting content exposure", which means now you're just looking at contact exposure. As the two chemicals in question have a cumulative build up and one of them causes known and uncurable /irreversible plastic allergy sensitivity (which is an absolute BITCH, btw, just about everything has plastics in it), and may / probably cause cancer, I have to respectfully disagree with your above post.
Look, if you don't care. Fine. I can't say anything about it. But it's not really in question that gak quality resins are cheap and dangerous. Do you want to know why gaming company's don't use them ? They don't want to get sued. If the cheaper, nastier stuff was safer, they'd use it to save on cost if it had the durability to cast with.
They don't because it's a known toxic substance that they are going to have their customers in direct contact with. They don't want to save some money on up front first cost raw materials only to get sued into the stone age and out of business when someone makes a causal link claim.
And finally, once again, i'm not saying that recasters definitely are using this stuff. I"m saying that there's no way to know what they are using, and it's a risk. It's a risk everyone has to decide if they're okay taking or not, but it IS a risk. I personally wouldn't. Just being in the industry i'm in, I like making sure i know what the feth i'm coming in contact with.
The answer to me is cost. Adding that gak to those products increased profit for those companies at the expense of consumers. So why wouldn't recasters do the same thing? Is there something you can add to resin to make it cheaper but with the "minor" side effect of causing cancer in anyone who comes in contact with it? I don't know, which is why I was asking. But I am genuinely surprised that you wonder why I, or others, might question the ethics of a business built off of "borrowing" the designs and IP's of another company when it comes to the safety of the materials used by said company. Especially when said company is located in a country known for its lax consumer protection laws, all the while other manufacturers in that very same country has been found to add poisonous additives to products that are sold on mainstream markets. Not legally gray markets like our non-FW sources ply.
I've been trading through this thread, and the biggest reason I can think of why recasters might not be adding cheaper, "more toxic" filler to their resin is because they actually have to work with the stuff, cast the stuff, remould the figures and package them. They'd be having a lot more direct daily contact with that stuff than their customers will (who you'd assume will be priming, painting and then varnishing them - adding layers between the resin and their handling it, and then putting it in a case or on a shelf - as opposed to maybe wearing gloves, but working with the stuff daily. Since recasters pretty much seem to be really small operations, with just a few people or 1-man shows - as opposed to an overlord in an office with a factory floor below, then it'd be ...ill advised to "cut" their resin with toxic waste, etc.
As for the guy who said that his grot tanks stunk of some sort of solvents. Obviously I can't smell his binned tanks, but my plastic tub of FW stuff stinks when I open it up, as do my "non-toxic" citadel and vallejo paints, as do my Maxmini, Kromlech, Puppetswar models. Resin stinks, regardless of where you get it from - especially when it's in a sealed or closed environment.
I would counter that most Chinese recaster 1 man operations know about as much about resins as most people in this thread. Which is to say, they aren't as informed as they think they are, and thus have no idea what they're using is harmful.
Also you can't "cut" resins with "toxic stuff". That makes no sense. This isn't heroin. You don't have a batch of "Awesome healthy Resin" in one tub, and "Toxic fething Death Resin" in another, and cut it up to make more profit. They are chemical reagents. Mixing them is likely to just give you a ruined batch of crud rather than yielding anything.
Recasters are offering their products less expensively than the real deal. Many reasons for that: less overhead and costs though are the main ways. They only have to pay themselves, and they can cut costs. Like on materials. One of those materials might be a less expensive resin than the main operator. Like an old school toxic resin that is still readily available from chemical manufacturers, much more cheaply than some alternatives out there that are better for human contact.
... this is not that far fetched. I mean, haven't any of you read about some of the famous product contamination that has happened in China ?
Lumber liquidators flooring having too much Formaldyhyde :
As for the "smell", I don't own much resin (see my last seventeen threads in this post as to why ), but none of my resins stink. Did you clean them before working with them ? I own a couple 32 mm figs, and maybe a handful of slightly larger. They are all stored together. I never get any smell at all when i open up the tub, and they are all in various states of assembly / primer / paint. Maybe though its just too small an amount, it's probably 6-7 figs tops.
Also as for the "stink", Epichlorohydrin in HIGH concentrations smells of sour garlic, but in the amounts we're talking about your dog probably couldn't detect it much less the human nose. Isocyanates are odorless even at concentration.
Point on this is the "smell test" is useless with chemicals. Look no further than Carbon Monoxide for an example. Odorless and absolutely lethal.
This is not me being tin-foil hatist. Un-and-under regulated goods coming out of China can, have, and on a long enough time line, will cause health and safety issues. Resin is already an inexpensive medium to work with when using "safer" resins. The toxic stuff is very very cheap. If a recaster chose to use a different, cheaper, more toxic (probably unknowingly!) medium to put more money in his pocket on raw material reduction cost, you'd never know it from a recaster. For me, the possible risks aren't worth the savings. I'm really not sure why anyone WOULD take the risk if they were fully informed, but that's wading into the court of opinion rather than fact and information.
Everyone is throwing around, is it toxic or not..
I look at it this way. You can compare buying knock offs as the same as buying seafood from a stranger's car trunk,
Is it safe? Maybe
Is it handle correctly? Maybe
Can I get sick from it? Maybe
Should it smell like that? Maybe
That is allot of maybes
But the real question is, Why am I getting it for such a cheap price?
Genoside07 wrote: But the real question is, Why am I getting it for such a cheap price?
It's not like recasters products are truly "cheap", but the official product is simply beyond the "ridiculously expensive" tag.
Recast prices are most of the time what I would consider GW official prices to be fine.
5 recasted terminator-sized models for around 25$ is not what I would call a "cheap product", but it's more or less in line with what other companies charge. The issue lies with the 50$ Forgeworld asks.
Genoside07 wrote: But the real question is, Why am I getting it for such a cheap price?
It's not like recasters products are truly "cheap", but the official product is simply beyond the "ridiculously expensive" tag.
Recast prices are most of the time what I would consider GW official prices to be fine.
5 recasted terminator-sized models for around 25$ is not what I would call a "cheap product", but it's more or less in line with what other companies charge. The issue lies with the 50$ Forgeworld asks.
What companies are charging around $25 for 5 models on 40mm bases?
What companies are charging around $25 for 5 models on 40mm bases?
Well, on GW's cartoony squatting scale, I can't really tell. I do have seen terminator-like models (which in other companies' catalogues means halfway between GW standard marine and terminator, probably closer to the first one), usually assembled on 25-30mm bases (non-squatting models don't really need huge bases) for that price.
I can't remember right now, but I've seen at least one thread in the P&M section where someone had converted Dreamforge's valkir assault troopers (5 for 20$ iirc) into terminators. They looked a bit small if compared to GW's standard terminator, but then again GW's scale nowadays is like 33mm, not 28mm. The only bigger "marines" I've ever seen are em4 space rangers, who look huge even compared to GW marines :S (although they're standing upright and not squatting, that may help).
5 recasted terminator-sized models for around 25$ is not what I would call a "cheap product", but it's more or less in line with what other companies charge. The issue lies with the 50$ Forgeworld asks.
Precisely. We don't buy recasts because we couldn't afford the real ones...quite in the contrary. We're just not going to pay the price FW asks for them as it's hideously overblown. And sure, you can claim "Then don't buy them at all!" but we want the models. So we buy it where we want. Deal with it.
What companies are charging around $25 for 5 models on 40mm bases?
Well, on GW's cartoony squatting scale, I can't really tell. I do have seen terminator-like models (which in other companies' catalogues means halfway between GW standard marine and terminator, probably closer to the first one), usually assembled on 25-30mm bases (non-squatting models don't really need huge bases) for that price.
I can't remember right now, but I've seen at least one thread in the P&M section where someone had converted Dreamforge's valkir assault troopers (5 for 20$ iirc) into terminators. They looked a bit small if compared to GW's standard terminator, but then again GW's scale nowadays is like 33mm, not 28mm. The only bigger "marines" I've ever seen are em4 space rangers, who look huge even compared to GW marines :S (although they're standing upright and not squatting, that may help).
So you can name ONE company.
My God, the industry really is so far ahead of Games Workshop in terms of its pricing!
Trying to focus on specific example to disprove a general point is lousy technique Kan.
The point was that recasts were priced at what felt like a reasonable price for what was on offer. If there isn't a whole raft of companies offering exactly the same thing for exactly the same price, it doesn't really detract from that.
Azreal13 wrote: Trying to focus on specific example to disprove a general point is lousy technique Kan.
The point was that recasts were priced at what felt like a reasonable price for what was on offer. If there isn't a whole raft of companies offering exactly the same thing for exactly the same price, it doesn't really detract from that.
The point he made was that "5 for $25 is in line with what other companies charge".
When you can only name one company that charges near that(and for the record? I think Mantic does the same with their Corporation "Enforcers", but I have not seen the models in person so cannot say), it suggests that the point is invalid.
Azreal13 wrote: Trying to focus on specific example to disprove a general point is lousy technique Kan.
The point was that recasts were priced at what felt like a reasonable price for what was on offer. If there isn't a whole raft of companies offering exactly the same thing for exactly the same price, it doesn't really detract from that.
The point he made was that "5 for $25 is in line with what other companies charge".
When you can only name one company that charges near that(and for the record? I think Mantic does the same with their Corporation "Enforcers", but I have not seen the models in person so cannot say), it suggests that the point is invalid.
"More or less" is a critical phrase you've omitted from what he said. Certainly I can't disagree with the general idea that $5-7 for a Terminator sized model feels like decent value whereas $10 starts to feel a bit expensive.
My God, the industry really is so far ahead of Games Workshop in terms of its pricing!
You asked and I delivered. There's your example: five plastic terminator-like models (even if a bit smaller than GW terminators) at 20$.
Also just checked and Puppetswar has sets of five termie-like models, with several weapons and armors configurations, iirc ranging from 28 to 30-something $. Those are in resin.
All of these include their weapons options, unlike FW, who after charging 50$ for 5 termies still asks 18$ more for the weapons, which takes the total to almost 70 bucks for five humanoid models. And some people wonder why recasts are able to offer the same or better product at half the price and still make a profit.
Azreal13 wrote: Don't forget the pants on head percentage based shipping costs either!
This. God this right here. This alone makes me understand why people throw caution to the wind and buy from recasters. Big price tags i can handle, supply and demand. Lazy ass shipping costs based on percentages is just ludicrous.
Azreal13 wrote: Don't forget the pants on head percentage based shipping costs either!
This. God this right here. This alone makes me understand why people throw caution to the wind and buy from recasters. Big price tags i can handle, supply and demand. Lazy ass shipping costs based on percentages is just ludicrous.
I am really hoping FW becomes available through GW themselves soon. The last two times I've ordered books (IA:13 IA:4) I got hit with their percentage based fee and they shipped it by courier who like to take their own extortionate "brokerage" fee.
I'd also like to mention forge world could take some lessons from the Chinese when it comes to packing items. For what FW charge its a disgrace to just chuck items in a box.
This might be a bit of topic but when the guy said that he needs to consult the manual for the transformation I remembered Transformers from my childhood and laughed at the idea but then he started flipping all the little bits and panels; quite a bit of engineering went into these.
Haight wrote: Lazy ass shipping costs based on percentages is just ludicrous.
Go over to your local post office sometime and get a price quote for shipping a package to the UK. I think you'll find that FW's "ludicrous" shipping costs are actually quite a bit cheaper than you'd pay.
Haight wrote: Lazy ass shipping costs based on percentages is just ludicrous.
Go over to your local post office sometime and get a price quote for shipping a package to the UK. I think you'll find that FW's "ludicrous" shipping costs are actually quite a bit cheaper than you'd pay.
I ship internationally fairly often due to trading on bartertown, so i'm aware of the pricing.
As my last post said, - i'm okay with big price tags. When i said ludicrous, i wasn't talking about the price ; i was talking about the process of pricing your shipping based on a percentage of purchase. Arbitrary (ludicrous) pricing conventions i'm not okay with. The % based shipping vector is stupid, even if it does make small purchases more palatable. The flat % of purchase drives me nuts. I'd rather they charge actual freight costs + markup for handling and packaging and actually package the items rather than just toss them in a box and cross their fingers.
Also if you're shipping internationally with USPS without at least checking out what other courier services can render, then you're not doing your homework. Depending on destination there are cheaper methods of shipping internationally.
Joyboozer wrote: Also, the postage route FW packages take is bizarre, england to Australia via Austria or Sweden?
What does that have to do with FW? Once they hand it over to the post office they're done with it, they don't choose the route the package takes. Probably all that's happening is that the company shipping it is using a "hub" model where everything goes through a few central locations and there are few direct routes between countries.
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Azreal13 wrote: But consumer shipping prices are almost always quite a bit more than commercial contracts, that's quite normal.
Sure, but what I'm saying is people seem to expect $5 shipping for a heavy box of models, and that's just not realistic. Paying $15 for shipping on a $100 tank seems pretty reasonable when USPS is demanding $50+ for the same box.
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Joyboozer wrote: I'd also like to mention forge world could take some lessons from the Chinese when it comes to packing items. For what FW charge its a disgrace to just chuck items in a box.
Counter-example: the only recasts I ever bought directly from the recaster were packed with even less care than models from FW, and they were made out of a really brittle resin that ensured lots of damage to delicate detail bits. And the pictures of recasts I've seen on ebay suggest that nothing has changed. Parts are still crammed into FW-style bags with no attempt to prevent them from breaking. Maybe somewhere out there a recaster is doing a good job with packaging, but you're still rolling the dice on getting a decent packing job. And I'm going to put a lot more faith in FW's willingness to replace damaged parts than a recaster who has already demonstrated that they don't care about doing the right thing.
Mario wrote: t be a bit of topic but when the guy said that he needs to consult the manual for the transformation I remembered Transformers from my childhood and laughed at the idea but then he started flipping all the little bits and panels; quite a bit of engineering went into these.
Well that's kinda what I wanted to add to the discussion. These are another Chinese KO product, significantly cheaper like the FW stuff but issues of quality and resin safety don't exist. And yeah, they're so technically advanced to begin with, that they're improved on really makes it hard to buy an original. Double the price AND it's not as good? That's asking a lot.
Azreal13 wrote: Yeah, but EBay is the McDonalds of recasting, if you know what you're about, you'd never buy from EBay.
I'm not just talking about pictures from the recasters themselves, which have obviously mixed quality. I've seen pictures from random people selling recasts they bought, still stuffed into their FW-style plastic bags in a way that would almost guarantee damage with the brittle resin recasters like to use.
Azreal13 wrote: Yeah, but EBay is the McDonalds of recasting, if you know what you're about, you'd never buy from EBay.
Yes indeedy.
Honestly I used to order a lot from forge world, what stopped me wasn't pricing, it was receiving every order late, damaged and mislabelled.
Chucking stuff in plastic forge world bags, that have small holes in them seemingly for the small parts to fall out, after they've broken off the sprues as there was no padding, despite expensive percentage shipping, sent to the wrong country, smashed about, relabled and finally sent to me.
Or flawless casts, wrapped in a ridiculous amount of bubble wrap, arriving in excellent time, posted for free, and replaced if I'm not happy. Service I'd pay full price for.
Way to gak in your own nest Forge World.
As for the "smell", I don't own much resin (see my last seventeen threads in this post as to why ), but none of my resins stink. Did you clean them before working with them ? I own a couple 32 mm figs, and maybe a handful of slightly larger. They are all stored together. I never get any smell at all when i open up the tub, and they are all in various states of assembly / primer / paint. Maybe though its just too small an amount, it's probably 6-7 figs tops.
Also as for the "stink", Epichlorohydrin in HIGH concentrations smells of sour garlic, but in the amounts we're talking about your dog probably couldn't detect it much less the human nose. Isocyanates are odorless even at concentration.
Point on this is the "smell test" is useless with chemicals. Look no further than Carbon Monoxide for an example. Odorless and absolutely lethal.
I'm talking about unbuilt, unassembled resin models stored in (mostly airtight) plastic tubs. Not cleaned/painted/sealed individual models in a figure case.
Azreal13 wrote: Yeah, but EBay is the McDonalds of recasting, if you know what you're about, you'd never buy from EBay.
Yes indeedy.
Honestly I used to order a lot from forge world, what stopped me wasn't pricing, it was receiving every order late, damaged and mislabelled.
Chucking stuff in plastic forge world bags, that have small holes in them seemingly for the small parts to fall out, after they've broken off the sprues as there was no padding, despite expensive percentage shipping, sent to the wrong country, smashed about, relabled and finally sent to me.
Or flawless casts, wrapped in a ridiculous amount of bubble wrap, arriving in excellent time, posted for free, and replaced if I'm not happy. Service I'd pay full price for.
Way to gak in your own nest Forge World.
Yeah, there's something to be said about contacting them for replacement parts for your badly-packaged replacement parts. No matter the level of CS, at a certain point, I think most of us start to feel awkward and I think many people just let it go rather than keep on asking for intact product. Which is ridiculous when you think about the prices we're paying. Throw Finecast into that same hat as well.
Azreal13 wrote: I'm not putting any moral or legal argument forward here, I'm saying that if I was selling an already cheap material, trying to make it go further with another cheap material seems pointless.
At the end of the day, you're free to hold your fears and concerns, whether legitimate or no, but unless someone can put forward a compelling argument for using something toxic in addition to or instead of simple resin, I'm not going to be persuaded they have any basis in fact.
The problem I have with your argument is that it assumes good business practices for people who are engaged in illegal operations. Surely we can agree that the recasters are motivated by profit or else they wouldn't be using the "easy" method of producing miniatures by stealing the designs of another company to sell on the black market. Instead they'd sculpt and develop their own products to sell and get into the miniatures market the "hard" way.
So, if the recasters are motivated by profit, and there is a way to increase that profit by cutting corners in material safety***, why wouldn't they take it? That is my point. You seem so willing to assume that people who are morally loose in their business practices still take customer safety into consideration when choosing the materials they work with. I assume the opposite. Given a chance to squeeze a few more pennies out of a batch of resin, a counterfeiter will do so because they are not accountable to their customers like a traditional business is. Hence we are going in circles. You think it is clearly obvious they wouldn't do something that I see no reason why they wouldn't be doing.
*** This is a major component of the problem regarding the counterfeiters. I came to this thread asking for information regarding which (if any) products could be introduced to resin to extend its use, and no one seemed to have an answer. Perhaps that is good in that there isn't anything that could be added to resin which makes it more dangerous while also extending its use or otherwise making it more profitable. However, just because this small community on Dakka hasn't been able to satisfactorily answer the question does not mean that such a product doesn't exist. So, for me, that is strike one for your argument.
We also have Sigvtar's experience testing resin which did come from a recaster and it demonstrated slightly higher toxicity levels. Again, this could be nothing, or it could be something. There isn't enough information to satisfy my concerns. However, your repeated attempts to assuage my concerns with appeals to good business sense on the part of recasters is comical to me given what little we do know about recasters and given the nature of their business. Strike two.
Finally, there is the well documented cases of major companies in China using materials that were found to be poisonous for the end users. Since the issues above could not be satisfactorily addressed, this becomes strike three for me. Given the cultural business climate in China where even their own citizens distrust the products made there I have no faith in the materials used to make knock off Forge World models.
So, I'll continue to be "scared" and you can continue to buy from the back alley vendors of the internet, and we can go on our merry way. However, this thread did nothing for me other than add to my skepticism about the safety of the counterfeit gaming products coming out of China.
Having participated in a sizable illegal venture(s) from the ages of 16 to 29, I can say that you have a particularly naivë view of motivations for running the business, Even IFF (IFF spelled correctly) the motivation is solely based upon profit.
For one, most materials that are "toxic" for the purposes of casting miniatures would be more expensive than would just buying regular resins.
And for casts minaures, the worst thing you have to worry about is Lead, and all miniatures used to be made out of lead prior to the 1990s, many of which are still floating around eBay.
Not to mention that Lead itself can be more expensive than some of the alloys used for casting, and that any metal that would be more toxic than lead (polonium, for instance) is about 10x to 1,000x the cost of Lead.
But all of this is irrelevant.
Purely from the point of profit substituing toxic materials into something intended for sales over a long period of time (and not a one-off scam, which was the case with the tainted milk) it is MASSIVELY more expensive to work with toxic materials than it is to work with the basic materials.
For one, you need to worry about your workers dying, which means they will needs protective gear.
If you do not provide it, then you are going to rapidly get a reputation of poisoning workers, which will lead to difficulty in finding workers, at best, or having a mob of angry parents or relatives kill you, at worst (as has happened in India, Indonesia, and Malaysia).
Working on a long-term illegal venture is no different than working on an almost legal venture.
And... In the case of recasters...
What they are doing isn't "illegal" where they are doing it. So there, they are running a perfectly legitimate business.
Counterfeiters in the Southern Pacific Rim/East-Asian region do not need to worry overly much about hiding their business from any "officials." The government is well aware, and often encourages this counterfeiting.
The last thing I was involved with was counterfeiting Magic, The Gathering Cards, and we actually had several companies in East Asia competing to help with the effort, claiming we could get tax incentives from the government, grants to employ students, or people on welfare, or low-interest loans for setting up shop in certain communities. And all of them completely understood that they were going to be counterfeiting a game component.
That venture wound up not happening, due to a decision to avoid wandering back into that lifestyle. But it, and other jobs that took me to South and East Asia in the 1980s gave me a rather broad education in the different types of "criminal" enterprises, as well as what is considered a crime, and where.
So, Based upon profit, working with Toxic materials would not be profitable, because:
1) It would be more expensive to use toxic materials.
2) What they are doing is not likely to be a crime where they are doing it. Thus, they are working for a long-term income, and would lose business if they poisoned their customers.
Worrying about this is a paranoia that springs from a romanticized view of criminals as hand-wringing, mustache-twirling bad-guys who are "out to get you."
Plenty of speculation about some things that could happen, but evidence would be some sort of health issue directly attributed to a resin recast, some sort of lab report confirming the toxicity (something we have the almost exact opposite of in fact) or some sort of confession from a recaster that they use a toxic product.
What we have is a total absence of evidence and very little clear reason for a motive.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Ok, if they are copies, how can their detail be better? I can imagine the same, but not better.
The detail can't be better than the individual cast they're copying, obviously, but the casting level almost always is (mold alignment, mold ripping, bubbles, warping, material...)
As decent recasters buy their "masters" as soon as FW releases a new kit, there is also a good chance that they'll be of better quality than the casts you get from FW late in a mold's run.
Azreal13 wrote: some sort of lab report confirming the toxicity (something we have the almost exact opposite of in fact) or some sort of confession from a recaster that they use a toxic product.
If you're referring to me, then you're wrong. The lab result never showed any toxicity. It just showed slightly increased toxicity levels compared to the original.
Plenty of speculation about some things that could happen, but evidence would be some sort of health issue directly attributed to a resin recast, some sort of lab report confirming the toxicity (something we have the almost exact opposite of in fact) or some sort of confession from a recaster that they use a toxic product.
What we have is a total absence of evidence and very little clear reason for a motive.
The three instances of contaminated chinese products are evidence, which is what i was referring to about his comments that chinese products using cheaper materials are not problematic or safety concerns and toxic materials are more expensive, and that they have a vested interest not to use toxic materials. The three case studies contradict this. There's basically no refuting that. I posted 3 instances: one from 7 years ago with baby formula, one from 6 years ago with pet treats, and one from just a couple months ago with formaldehyde coming from laminate flooring. There's more. Shall i dig them up ? Further, other than anecdotal / circumstancial "i used to be a counterfeiter" evidence based on personal experience, what evidence did he post ? I can form a personal opinion framed in a personal experience narrative too. It doesn't foment opinion into fact.
If you're talking about toxic chemical exposure to resins, you have just as much evidence recasters are using safe resin that i have that they aren't. Which is zero sum logic.
Resin is a slightly to highly toxic material depending on type you're using and context. That requires no evidence, as it's a proven fact. There's MDS sheets supporting this (an example of which i gave in link format. Also noted a couple websites corroborating that, albeit a more toxic one).
This is what i'm referring to when i say "evidence". I'm refuting some of his claims, not necessarily saying there's evidence that recasters use gak resin. For the record, those in the "low risk" camp have no proof they aren't by the way.
As for motive, in my line of work i come in contact with resins for industrial use. Not unilaterally, but some of the nastier grades of resin in terms of exposure toxicity are amongst the cheapest you can get (and oldest, fair being fair). Profitability by substitution is a construction turn of phrase that says "i submit to the engineer on equipment i make the claim is just as good as his Basis of Design, but will cost me less money to buy. I then put that reduced cost in my pocket as i already bid the job."
The same holds true for any manufacturing: if i can reduce my material cost, i can increase my profit per unit, or i can increase my volume of sales by reducing overall price.
If i'm a one man show, its much less likely i'm going to do my due diligence to make sure what i'm using doesn't have consequences. Particularly if i'm engaging in ... if not "illegal" in my locale, internationally questionable practices to begin with that would have legal ramifications in other countries.
Also on the whole "GW forgeworld toxicity", i have already said (twice, in fact) in this thread, that Forgeworld's resin is safe to handle. I engaged on the topic with Peregrine. I even went so far as to surmise that if FW's resin was safe to handle, so probably is Finecast. Just so there's no insinuations to the contrary. I'm talking only about unregulated recasters with my skepticism as to the safety. I've actually seen an MDS sheet on forgeworld resin (but do not have a copy of it at my disposal). It's safe to handle once cured. I'd still wear a mask if cutting / filing / etc it, but just a mask. No respirator. I've also said I believe they don't use epichlorohydrin and the isocyanates they use in the curing process are contained once cured, ergo after curing the risk of inhalation exposure is essentially non-existant.
Those acknowledgements I would think would serve as agreement with Sigvatar's having the model's tested, and my not counter-pointing him, as I , ya know, agree with him.
What i have maintained, and unfortunately apparently i have to reiterate every time i post or i get quoted out of context, is that there are lots of cheap, readily available resins on the market that do not share these properties. It is NOT guaranteed recasters are using these. It is also NOT guaranteed they are not. Caveat Emptor.
So we don't have a total absence of evidence. We have three case studies of profitability by substitution of (highly regulated, even!) chinese products with cheap toxic filler.
We have a supposition that re-casters could do the same in their nigh unregulated environment.
We have a motive of profitability by substitution via the raw material vector.
I have an issue with people calling people who buy recasts criminal scum or thieves myself, these same people who support human rights abuse, theft, no workers rights, animal abuse, slave labour and sweat shops by buying coke, mcdonalds, shopping at Walmart/asda, nike shoes etc. the list goes on, I mean these people can have double standards if they like, but they shouldn't sit on there high horses and somehow pretend to be more moral that others, its plain stupidity.
I freely admit I shop at these places and they are scum, id like it if the world didn't work this way, but that's a different topic for a different day.
Plenty of speculation about some things that could happen, but evidence would be some sort of health issue directly attributed to a resin recast, some sort of lab report confirming the toxicity (something we have the almost exact opposite of in fact) or some sort of confession from a recaster that they use a toxic product.
What we have is a total absence of evidence and very little clear reason for a motive.
The three instances of contaminated chinese products are evidence, which is what i was referring to about his comments that chinese products using cheaper materials are not problematic or safety concerns and toxic materials are more expensive, and that they have a vested interest not to use toxic materials. The three case studies contradict this. There's basically no refuting that. I posted 3 instances: one from 7 years ago with baby formula, one from 6 years ago with pet treats, and one from just a couple months ago with formaldehyde coming from laminate flooring. There's more. Shall i dig them up ? Further, other than anecdotal / circumstancial "i used to be a counterfeiter" evidence based on personal experience, what evidence did he post ? I can form a personal opinion framed in a personal experience narrative too. It doesn't foment opinion into fact.
If you're talking about toxic chemical exposure to resins, you have just as much evidence recasters are using safe resin that i have that they aren't. Which is zero sum logic.
Resin is a slightly to highly toxic material depending on type you're using and context. That requires no evidence, as it's a proven fact. There's MDS sheets supporting this (an example of which i gave in link format. Also noted a couple websites corroborating that, albeit a more toxic one).
This is what i'm referring to when i say "evidence". I'm refuting some of his claims, not necessarily saying there's evidence that recasters use gak resin. For the record, those in the "low risk" camp have no proof they aren't by the way.
As for motive, in my line of work i come in contact with resins for industrial use. Not unilaterally, but some of the nastier grades of resin in terms of exposure toxicity are amongst the cheapest you can get (and oldest, fair being fair). Profitability by substitution is a construction turn of phrase that says "i submit to the engineer on equipment i make the claim is just as good as his Basis of Design, but will cost me less money to buy. I then put that reduced cost in my pocket as i already bid the job."
The same holds true for any manufacturing: if i can reduce my material cost, i can increase my profit per unit, or i can increase my volume of sales by reducing overall price.
If i'm a one man show, its much less likely i'm going to do my due diligence to make sure what i'm using doesn't have consequences. Particularly if i'm engaging in ... if not "illegal" in my locale, internationally questionable practices to begin with that would have legal ramifications in other countries.
Also on the whole "GW forgeworld toxicity", i have already said (twice, in fact) in this thread, that Forgeworld's resin is safe to handle. I engaged on the topic with Peregrine. I even went so far as to surmise that if FW's resin was safe to handle, so probably is Finecast. Just so there's no insinuations to the contrary. I'm talking only about unregulated recasters with my skepticism as to the safety. I've actually seen an MDS sheet on forgeworld resin (but do not have a copy of it at my disposal). It's safe to handle once cured. I'd still wear a mask if cutting / filing / etc it, but just a mask. No respirator. I've also said I believe they don't use epichlorohydrin and the isocyanates they use in the curing process are contained once cured, ergo after curing the risk of inhalation exposure is essentially non-existant.
Those acknowledgements I would think would serve as agreement with Sigvatar's having the model's tested, and my not counter-pointing him, as I , ya know, agree with him.
What i have maintained, and unfortunately apparently i have to reiterate every time i post or i get quoted out of context, is that there are lots of cheap, readily available resins on the market that do not share these properties. It is NOT guaranteed recasters are using these. It is also NOT guaranteed they are not. Caveat Emptor.
So we don't have a total absence of evidence. We have three case studies of profitability by substitution of (highly regulated, even!) chinese products with cheap toxic filler.
We have a supposition that re-casters could do the same in their nigh unregulated environment.
We have a motive of profitability by substitution via the raw material vector.
What is so incredulous about this ?
I really think you need to pay more attention to the differences between direct evidence, circumstantial evidence and pure supposition.
That there are cases of substitution is beyond doubt. However, in the milk powder case, for instance, there was both a clear motive to do so (they were cutting it with something much cheaper and the product itself had a high street price) and it wasn't an attempt to build any sort of repeat business, it was simply an attempt to earn a quick buck out of the prevailing situation of supply and demand.
Neither of these factors really applies here. You cite that there are cheap resins available that aren't as safe, which is fine, but unless they're substantially cheaper than normal resin, which unlike in the case of pretty much any substitution of raw material story, is already pretty cheap, and also a lot more toxic, once cured, to the degree it poses a risk to your average hobbyist in the quantities and timescales they'll be exposed, there's no real motive to make that substitution nor any real risk if it is.
I'm sorry, but making inferences based on other products substituted by other people is like me accusing you of a gun crime simply because you've got an American flag by your name. There is no link, circumstantial or direct, clear or tenuous, between either the personnel or product we're discussing and those you cite as evidence, in essence, you're saying "these Chinese people are prepared to do bad things, therefore all Chinese people must be!"
You're also making comparisons between people actively participating in criminal behaviour (I'm pretty sure putting poison in foodstuffs is highly illegal, even in China) and people who are ostensibly making/supplementing an income participating in something which is a much more normalised part of the culture.
You're right FW resin isn't classed as toxic, that doesn't make it safe, there are, in principle at least, still potential risks to health if handled incorrectly over the long term and in quantity (again, I'm of the mind that a typical hobbyist will seldom be exposed sufficiently for this to be a consideration) and the only direct evidence we have with regard to the relative toxicity of Chinese resin is a resounding "not enough to concern anyone."
If we're going to cite circumstantial and anecdotal evidence too, then I'll cite all the people who have apparently bought recast models and not died, or indeed, suffered any ill effects at all.
I firmly believe this idea of toxic resin is something that was thrown at people by GW staffers and the like when the topic of recasts came up in order to justify their own prices and discourage people from trying to buy them, but, as an idea, it is just credulous enough, and enough people are sufficiently paranoid about their health that it has really gained traction.
We're arguing in circles though, because unless you're able to present an example of resin from a recast that's been tested as dangerously toxic, then, beyond Sigvtar's test, all we've both really got is supposition and maybe.
That said, I still believe the most likely explanation is they're just using normal resin, but I can't prove a belief.
Plenty of speculation about some things that could happen, but evidence would be some sort of health issue directly attributed to a resin recast, some sort of lab report confirming the toxicity (something we have the almost exact opposite of in fact) or some sort of confession from a recaster that they use a toxic product.
What we have is a total absence of evidence and very little clear reason for a motive.
The three instances of contaminated chinese products are evidence, which is what i was referring to about his comments that chinese products using cheaper materials are not problematic or safety concerns and toxic materials are more expensive, and that they have a vested interest not to use toxic materials. The three case studies contradict this. There's basically no refuting that. I posted 3 instances: one from 7 years ago with baby formula, one from 6 years ago with pet treats, and one from just a couple months ago with formaldehyde coming from laminate flooring. There's more. Shall i dig them up ? Further, other than anecdotal / circumstancial "i used to be a counterfeiter" evidence based on personal experience, what evidence did he post ? I can form a personal opinion framed in a personal experience narrative too. It doesn't foment opinion into fact.
If you're talking about toxic chemical exposure to resins, you have just as much evidence recasters are using safe resin that i have that they aren't. Which is zero sum logic.
Resin is a slightly to highly toxic material depending on type you're using and context. That requires no evidence, as it's a proven fact. There's MDS sheets supporting this (an example of which i gave in link format. Also noted a couple websites corroborating that, albeit a more toxic one).
This is what i'm referring to when i say "evidence". I'm refuting some of his claims, not necessarily saying there's evidence that recasters use gak resin. For the record, those in the "low risk" camp have no proof they aren't by the way.
As for motive, in my line of work i come in contact with resins for industrial use. Not unilaterally, but some of the nastier grades of resin in terms of exposure toxicity are amongst the cheapest you can get (and oldest, fair being fair). Profitability by substitution is a construction turn of phrase that says "i submit to the engineer on equipment i make the claim is just as good as his Basis of Design, but will cost me less money to buy. I then put that reduced cost in my pocket as i already bid the job."
The same holds true for any manufacturing: if i can reduce my material cost, i can increase my profit per unit, or i can increase my volume of sales by reducing overall price.
If i'm a one man show, its much less likely i'm going to do my due diligence to make sure what i'm using doesn't have consequences. Particularly if i'm engaging in ... if not "illegal" in my locale, internationally questionable practices to begin with that would have legal ramifications in other countries.
Also on the whole "GW forgeworld toxicity", i have already said (twice, in fact) in this thread, that Forgeworld's resin is safe to handle. I engaged on the topic with Peregrine. I even went so far as to surmise that if FW's resin was safe to handle, so probably is Finecast. Just so there's no insinuations to the contrary. I'm talking only about unregulated recasters with my skepticism as to the safety. I've actually seen an MDS sheet on forgeworld resin (but do not have a copy of it at my disposal). It's safe to handle once cured. I'd still wear a mask if cutting / filing / etc it, but just a mask. No respirator. I've also said I believe they don't use epichlorohydrin and the isocyanates they use in the curing process are contained once cured, ergo after curing the risk of inhalation exposure is essentially non-existant.
Those acknowledgements I would think would serve as agreement with Sigvatar's having the model's tested, and my not counter-pointing him, as I , ya know, agree with him.
What i have maintained, and unfortunately apparently i have to reiterate every time i post or i get quoted out of context, is that there are lots of cheap, readily available resins on the market that do not share these properties. It is NOT guaranteed recasters are using these. It is also NOT guaranteed they are not. Caveat Emptor.
So we don't have a total absence of evidence. We have three case studies of profitability by substitution of (highly regulated, even!) chinese products with cheap toxic filler.
We have a supposition that re-casters could do the same in their nigh unregulated environment.
We have a motive of profitability by substitution via the raw material vector.
What is so incredulous about this ?
I dont really understand what the point is. are you saying you will get sick just being in the presence of the product?
wear gloves if youre going to work with it, sand it underwater, cut off mold lines outside then vacuum it up. as long as youre not an idiot about it, how bad can it really be? Are you suggesting its going to slowly kill you as it sits on the shelf fully painted? I find it a little hard to believe.
You're right FW resin isn't classed as toxic, that doesn't make it safe, there are, in principle at least, still potential risks to health if handled incorrectly over the long term and in quantity (again, I'm of the mind that a typical hobbyist will seldom be exposed sufficiently for this to be a consideration) and the only direct evidence we have with regard to the relative toxicity of Chinese resin is a resounding "not enough to concern anyone."
this is not really true. I was reading on here some guy developed a sensitivity to superglue because he was sitting around gluing stuff all day. if youre sitting around all day with the windows closed working on some massive resin army you better believe that the quantity will be sufficient enough to mess you up.
Plenty of speculation about some things that could happen, but evidence would be some sort of health issue directly attributed to a resin recast, some sort of lab report confirming the toxicity (something we have the almost exact opposite of in fact) or some sort of confession from a recaster that they use a toxic product.
What we have is a total absence of evidence and very little clear reason for a motive.
The three instances of contaminated chinese products are evidence, which is what i was referring to about his comments that chinese products using cheaper materials are not problematic or safety concerns and toxic materials are more expensive, and that they have a vested interest not to use toxic materials. The three case studies contradict this. There's basically no refuting that. I posted 3 instances: one from 7 years ago with baby formula, one from 6 years ago with pet treats, and one from just a couple months ago with formaldehyde coming from laminate flooring. There's more. Shall i dig them up ? Further, other than anecdotal / circumstancial "i used to be a counterfeiter" evidence based on personal experience, what evidence did he post ? I can form a personal opinion framed in a personal experience narrative too. It doesn't foment opinion into fact.
If you're talking about toxic chemical exposure to resins, you have just as much evidence recasters are using safe resin that i have that they aren't. Which is zero sum logic.
Resin is a slightly to highly toxic material depending on type you're using and context. That requires no evidence, as it's a proven fact. There's MDS sheets supporting this (an example of which i gave in link format. Also noted a couple websites corroborating that, albeit a more toxic one).
This is what i'm referring to when i say "evidence". I'm refuting some of his claims, not necessarily saying there's evidence that recasters use gak resin. For the record, those in the "low risk" camp have no proof they aren't by the way.
As for motive, in my line of work i come in contact with resins for industrial use. Not unilaterally, but some of the nastier grades of resin in terms of exposure toxicity are amongst the cheapest you can get (and oldest, fair being fair). Profitability by substitution is a construction turn of phrase that says "i submit to the engineer on equipment i make the claim is just as good as his Basis of Design, but will cost me less money to buy. I then put that reduced cost in my pocket as i already bid the job."
The same holds true for any manufacturing: if i can reduce my material cost, i can increase my profit per unit, or i can increase my volume of sales by reducing overall price.
If i'm a one man show, its much less likely i'm going to do my due diligence to make sure what i'm using doesn't have consequences. Particularly if i'm engaging in ... if not "illegal" in my locale, internationally questionable practices to begin with that would have legal ramifications in other countries.
Also on the whole "GW forgeworld toxicity", i have already said (twice, in fact) in this thread, that Forgeworld's resin is safe to handle. I engaged on the topic with Peregrine. I even went so far as to surmise that if FW's resin was safe to handle, so probably is Finecast. Just so there's no insinuations to the contrary. I'm talking only about unregulated recasters with my skepticism as to the safety. I've actually seen an MDS sheet on forgeworld resin (but do not have a copy of it at my disposal). It's safe to handle once cured. I'd still wear a mask if cutting / filing / etc it, but just a mask. No respirator. I've also said I believe they don't use epichlorohydrin and the isocyanates they use in the curing process are contained once cured, ergo after curing the risk of inhalation exposure is essentially non-existant.
Those acknowledgements I would think would serve as agreement with Sigvatar's having the model's tested, and my not counter-pointing him, as I , ya know, agree with him.
What i have maintained, and unfortunately apparently i have to reiterate every time i post or i get quoted out of context, is that there are lots of cheap, readily available resins on the market that do not share these properties. It is NOT guaranteed recasters are using these. It is also NOT guaranteed they are not. Caveat Emptor.
So we don't have a total absence of evidence. We have three case studies of profitability by substitution of (highly regulated, even!) chinese products with cheap toxic filler.
We have a supposition that re-casters could do the same in their nigh unregulated environment.
We have a motive of profitability by substitution via the raw material vector.
What is so incredulous about this ?
I dont really understand what the point is. are you saying you will get sick just being in the presence of the product?
wear gloves if youre going to work with it, sand it underwater, cut off mold lines outside then vacuum it up. as long as youre not an idiot about it, how bad can it really be? Are you suggesting its going to slowly kill you as it sits on the shelf fully painted? I find it a little hard to believe.
You're right FW resin isn't classed as toxic, that doesn't make it safe, there are, in principle at least, still potential risks to health if handled incorrectly over the long term and in quantity (again, I'm of the mind that a typical hobbyist will seldom be exposed sufficiently for this to be a consideration) and the only direct evidence we have with regard to the relative toxicity of Chinese resin is a resounding "not enough to concern anyone."
this is not really true. I was reading on here some guy developed a sensitivity to superglue because he was sitting around gluing stuff all day. if youre sitting around all day with the windows closed working on some massive resin army you better believe that the quantity will be sufficient enough to mess you up.
Erm?
Sorry, but a typical hobbyist doesn't sit around all day in an unventilated room surrounded by huge piles of resin huffing CA fumes. At least, not in my experience. That would be an atypical hobbyist IMO, one who chooses to disregard all best practice and safety guidelines.
Equally, people don't typically develop sensitivities to a product unless they're allergic from the get go or get exposed to it in large doses, not that it can't happen, but we're talking in general terms here, and specific doesn't really trump general in this sort of circumstance.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Ok, if they are copies, how can their detail be better? I can imagine the same, but not better.
That is because the "recasters" are starting to improve upon the casts. . Some of the higher tier recasters are editing the molds so that when they cast they come out better.
The thing you have to realize is that in the Eastern mindset "Improvement" or "Perfection" is king. They have a much greater tendency to take an idea and constantly rework it to enhance the product and production process. Western Culture has more emphasis on "Creation" or "Conception". Its why the two cultures really work together quite well. Western culture will be more likely to come up with a new idea and Eastern Culture will refine it. Both have there advantages and disadvantages. In competition between the cultures it comes down to who can do it faster. Western Culture will create the idea then Eastern culture will race to better it before Western culture creates something that obsoletes the now "old" idea.
Haight wrote: Except that there's lots of evidence to suggest otherwise, BeAfraid.
Maybe you could post a link to said evidence.
I could look into it the next time I go back to LA at the UCLA Library.
But.... having read your posts, you seem to be tremendously paranoid, and have an overly Hollywood biased imagination regarding criminals.
MB
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hotsauceman1 wrote: Ok, if they are copies, how can their detail be better? I can imagine the same, but not better.
1) Buy a model just after it is released, so that the Master used is from an early casting off the production mold.
2) Then have a modeler go over the casting to clean it of ALL mold lines, flash, and casting errors.
3) Then have the modeler go over the casting to repair any flaws, and sharpen details (this is what anyone would do in terms of paint prep anyway).
4) Then make the mold using a micrometer spacer that offsets mold shrinkage of the model.
5) Then use harder resin than the original to cast.
MB
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Lockark wrote: Can someone explain to me how some resin is toxic to touch after it sets? I was not aware of this.
If your just talking about sanding, that's most resin including forge world.
The only other way it's toxic is skin contact from uncured/lliquid resin.
I was not aware of toxic to touch resin.
There isn't any unless it is intentionally adulterated with a toxic volatile. Doing this would be terrifically expensive, as it would require a resin designed specifically to suspend the volatile in a matrix. Typical resins will not do this.
This is just an example of the paranoia I am referencing concerning the "Evidence" claimed about this issue.
I can't help but feel that a good portion of this "toxic paranoia" comes from the fact that some people simply can't believe a recaster can offer the same or better product than FW for half (or less) the price. In the eyes of those people, there must be something terribly wrong with recasts.
As it's been explained to death before, recasts are not cheap products. A recasted world eaters dreadnought (with no arms) is still a pretty chunk of resin for almost 20$. The problem is that the official product costs more than 40$ and you have no guarantees it'll be better (or even as good) as the recasted model.
Recasters thrive because the official product pricing is madness.
Peregrine wrote: Sure, but what I'm saying is people seem to expect $5 shipping for a heavy box of models, and that's just not realistic. Paying $15 for shipping on a $100 tank seems pretty reasonable when USPS is demanding $50+ for the same box.
I don't expect $5 shipping, but if I order 4x squads of Space Marines, which weigh (on the sprue in the bag with gates attached) .08oz each / 16oz for 20, I expect to pay the £14.95 / $22.USD that the Royal Mail price calculator generates for shipping to my house from Nottingham for a package that size (no more than 11"x11"x11") and that weight (up to 2kg).
Forge World, however, would simply charge me $53 for that package because that represents 15% of the order total, and pocket the rest.
I don't see that - or order cost percentage based vs weight based shipping - as particularly defensible.
But don't worry, VAT is included! (even though it isn't applicable to you in your US location... but the excuse is that they don't subract it but instead use it to "subsidize" the shipping cost).
I don't think it's unreasonable for a subsidiary of a multimilliondollar multinational corporation to offer shipping rates commensurate with what 2 and 3 man shops from Poland offer.
Weirdly enough, they seem to get by without essentially double-charging international, non-VAT customers part of the shipping costs for VAT customers
Recasters thrive because the official product pricing is madness.
Precisely. And it's a problem that causes far bigger waves than it should. People used to refrain from buying stuff from China / Asia in general because they feared it being of low quality or toxic. With FW immensively overcharging their products, however, recasters can offer their wares at 1/3 of the original price (or less!) and that giant gap is big enough to overcome those fears. As a consequence, more and more people buy recasts and realize that they aren't bad in any way, but rather come at a high quality level. This positive experience will spread and might lead to more and more people buying recasts even with lower price gaps. And while we don't care for FW / GW at all (after all, they chose to overcharge so much), the problem starts with smaller companies having trouble to compete with recasters despite asking for fair prices.
Recasters thrive because the official product pricing is madness.
Precisely. And it's a problem that causes far bigger waves than it should. People used to refrain from buying stuff from China / Asia in general because they feared it being of low quality or toxic. With FW immensively overcharging their products, however, recasters can offer their wares at 1/3 of the original price (or less!) and that giant gap is big enough to overcome those fears. As a consequence, more and more people buy recasts and realize that they aren't bad in any way, but rather come at a high quality level. This positive experience will spread and might lead to more and more people buying recasts even with lower price gaps. And while we don't care for FW / GW at all (after all, they chose to overcharge so much), the problem starts with smaller companies having trouble to compete with recasters despite asking for fair prices.
True only to a certain degree, I guess. If the small 3rd party companies keep their prices reasonable, I don't think they have much to fear from recasters.
I have an armless FW chaos dreadnought and I intend to outfit it with two thunderclaws from the Puppetswar range. The pair costs 15€ iirc (well, 13.5€ at their current 10% discount offer). It's mostly in line with what recasters tend to ask for FW dreadnought arms (between 6 and 8$ each). And Puppetswar walker arms are designed to be easily magnetized, thus swapping weapon options is easy as hell (the also sell the weapons separatedly for 5€ the pair, I think).
There is the brittle crap with so much styrene smell that the thought of opening the box during Apocalypse Now 'I love the smell of napalm in the morning' moment for the sake of immersion crossed my mind. Still looks good though heh.
There's also the beautiful, sharp, neither brittle nor smelly beautiful type of recast. I saw bare minis where I looked for faults and didnt find any, just perfect.
I have a few of both but no more, I decided that I prefer a single original FW model over a few recasts. Not a question of morality for me, crossing the speed limit by 20km/h is worse imo and almost everybody does it at times, I bet including all the anti counterfeit crusaders. I just want FW doing more sculpts and I pay for that, also I like them tbh and that's how it works with me and original stuff heh.
@Haight - good informed posts man but if you want to get into outgasing, look at your carpet first, or a brand new tv or gfx card. The chemical fumes like ones from cheap resin are here to stay and we adapt or die tbh. Still it's better to have safer products ofc but there's only so much you can control, minis sure can be toxic but you seal them and it's not really that much of a surface in total, I doubt that, let's say a 1500 pts painted recast army is significantly hazardous (I mean more than, let say everyday breathing of big city air). Correct if wrong.
Plumbumbarum wrote: There is the brittle crap with so much styrene smell that the thought of opening the box during Apocalypse Now 'I love the smell of napalm in the morning' moment for the sake of immersion crossed my mind. Still looks good though heh.
There's also the beautiful, sharp, neither brittle nor smelly beautiful type of recast. I saw bare minis where I looked for faults and didnt find any, just perfect.
I have seen some of the smelly recasts, which had such a strong plastic smell, that even through a paintjob, simply playing against it for a game caused me to get a headache. I have worked with dozens of resins and poured resin, I have never had a model which smelled like those. The guy said he thought the smell would go away but it wasn't seeming to go away.
eBay doesn't yet have the ability to let you smell an item yet. So while both look good, you have to roll the dice to see if you get smelly smelly smelly recast or not.
Just want to chime in here, agreeing with the 'smell' issue these recasts have.
Just like nkelsch I have worked on a lot of resins models from many manufacturers (DP9, Maxmini, Forgeworld, 3rd Party), and made my own casts of custom parts.
Where this is relevant for the topic of recasters is.. sadly I bit the bullet and could not resist expanding my Forgeworld collection so... easily, perhaps? I have purchased from many different sellers to test quality, and I can without a doubt mention that many of them sell products that REEK to high heavens with a foul 'off gassing' chemical odor.
This brings up a good question to ask ones self, is it worth damaging your lungs and health, and the health of those you game with just to save a couple bucks?
More than 6 months later, and I still have a super heavy tank that smells like fresh industrial byproduct even after being washed in warm soapy water several times.
You're conflating a "chemical" smell with something toxic.
It isn't necessarily the same thing (it isn't necessarily not the same thing either, of course) but there are plenty of other things that smell that we, as hobbyists, use on a regular basis that, used properly, pose no significant risk to health - glues, paints (alcohol rather than acrylic, although I've used some pretty funky smelling water based acrylic!) varnishes, aerosols of multiples of the above, paint stripper etc etc.
Only in a very limited minority of cases where people have some sort of pre-existing sensitivity to the active ingredients in these things is there any real danger to health (again, pre-supposing sensible precautions.)
I've encountered the smell mentioned on some recasts, but, frankly, on that experience, I have trouble believing they were that obnoxious unless the game took place in a cupboard. I guess they could have been really really smelly and large models or something.
But if we start treating anything that smells strongly as if it were toxic, we'd have to quarantine every teenage boy who's just discovered body spray. (Which is probably a good idea for numerous other reasons, but not simply because they smell strongly of chemicals!)
That smell inset the resin, well if it is then its transferred onto other products from other sellers, before miniatures I was buying my daughter shoes and they'd arrive with that same smell.
If smell was an indication of toxicity, using a toilet would be a grimdark and deadly endeavour, goodbye honey kiss the children from me Im going. In case of recast, the styrene for example is hazardous but it is has yet to be proven to be cancirogenic, not to mention the world around us is full of it anyway afaik. Im not saying that those are healthy but in my case the smell dimnished to acceptable levels (opening the box though was something, smelled like primary school heh. Dont ask) and I dont know what they'd have to use to poison you through acrylic paints, polonium, corrosive gas?
I stumbled upon a few supposed MSDSs for various recasters resins, will try to find them. Those are not confirmed though so nearly worthless but checking properties one can draw some conclusions maybe. Im tempted to send one of my pieces to the lab but Glotkin and fw possesed come first heh.
nkelsch wrote: eBay doesn't yet have the ability to let you smell an item yet. So while both look good, you have to roll the dice to see if you get smelly smelly smelly recast or not.
Well that's why you buy direct not on ebay heh. And the smelly ones, 1st world kids want to toy with Nurgle but you dont want to get your hands dirty eh? Papa will get you anyway.
Ouze wrote: I don't think it's unreasonable for a subsidiary of a multimilliondollar multinational corporation to offer shipping rates commensurate with what 2 and 3 man shops from Poland offer.
Weirdly enough, they seem to get by without essentially double-charging international, non-VAT customers part of the shipping costs for VAT customers
Even in the UK the shipping is 12%. If I were to spend £200 on Forgeworld I'd be hit with £24 postage. For what??? £200 of Forgeworld would weigh ounces, it's one of their Heresy bundles (20 marines or so) and a rhino. It wouldn't cost much more for me to drive to Nottingham and back from London to pick it up in person!
Howard A Treesong wrote: Even in the UK the shipping is 12%. If I were to spend £200 on Forgeworld I'd be hit with £24 postage. For what??? £200 of Forgeworld would weigh ounces, it's one of their Heresy bundles (20 marines or so) and a rhino. It wouldn't cost much more for me to drive to Nottingham and back from London to pick it up in person!
That's because you're subsidizing the cost of shipping outside the UK, especially all of those free shipping orders and free shipping replacement parts. Thanks for doing your part to keep my models semi-affordable!
Opts to buys cheap product to keep costs down, then springs for expensive tests.... somehow I don't see that happening. If you were going to throw money at the models wouldn't one just buy FW to begin with?
Well, calling someone out as a liar (which is essentially what you're doing, whether intentional or not) isn't a particularly classy move, but, nevertheless, surely you can grasp the concept of a one time expense paying dividends over multiple future purchases?
Howard A Treesong wrote: Even in the UK the shipping is 12%. If I were to spend £200 on Forgeworld I'd be hit with £24 postage. For what??? £200 of Forgeworld would weigh ounces, it's one of their Heresy bundles (20 marines or so) and a rhino. It wouldn't cost much more for me to drive to Nottingham and back from London to pick it up in person!
That's because you're subsidizing the cost of shipping outside the UK, especially all of those free shipping orders and free shipping replacement parts. Thanks for doing your part to keep my models semi-affordable!
You realise that in order to get overseas "free" shipping you need to be paying £250.00 or more. So that's £50.00 (US$75/68 EUR) in VAT that we pay that they don't pass on to HMRC which is actually paying for the "free" shipping? FW is also a small part of GW PLC (they're inside the same building as the studio, etc) so they would be paying a very friendly negotiated rate from UPS rather than "retail" for their shipping.
Any resolution to the concerns over toxic resin? Some good discussion, but I'm still pretty confused.
I guess as a precaution, wash with soap and water, don't handle/use without gloves, and use a dust/gas mask if necessary when working with it.
I can understand that the China resin might be potentially more toxic than the ones used at FW, but even if it was, would it be significant enough for the average hobbyist to worry about? I also wouldn't think that cast resin with 3-4 layers of paint over top would pose a health risk unless you're sanding it and breathing in any dust particles it might be giving off. But hey I could be wrong.
paulson games wrote: Chinese resin is made from kittens and babies and is 100% toxic.
Russian resin is at least made entirely from orphans so it's at least PETA safe.
Exalt for the lulz sir. Well played
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pr0wler wrote: Any resolution to the concerns over toxic resin? Some good discussion, but I'm still pretty confused.
I guess as a precaution, wash with soap and water, don't handle/use without gloves, and use a dust/gas mask if necessary when working with it.
I can understand that the China resin might be potentially more toxic than the ones used at FW, but even if it was, would it be significant enough for the average hobbyist to worry about? I also wouldn't think that cast resin with 3-4 layers of paint over top would pose a health risk unless you're sanding it and breathing in any dust particles it might be giving off. But hey I could be wrong.
I'm a frequenter of the knock-off resin-crack, and it handles just like regular resin. I use the same precautions I'd normally use when working with resin. The most important one is to use a dust mask when sanding/sawing the bits, as even forgeworld resin doesn't do nice things to your lungs in tiny particle form. The washing is more to remove mold releasing compound, which screws with paint. I wouldn't worry about the gloves unless you have cuts on your hands.
pr0wler wrote: Any resolution to the concerns over toxic resin? Some good discussion, but I'm still pretty confused.
I guess as a precaution, wash with soap and water, don't handle/use without gloves, and use a dust/gas mask if necessary when working with it.
I can understand that the China resin might be potentially more toxic than the ones used at FW, but even if it was, would it be significant enough for the average hobbyist to worry about? I also wouldn't think that cast resin with 3-4 layers of paint over top would pose a health risk unless you're sanding it and breathing in any dust particles it might be giving off. But hey I could be wrong.
Aside from the fact that nobody has been able to suggest what about the resin would be toxic (ie a toxic alternative to the already incredibly cheap material that resin is) we have a user who was concerned enough to spend the money to have recast resin tested, only for the results to confirm it was only slightly more toxic than FW resin (ie essentially not toxic at all) so I'd say we have an answer good enough for all but the most paranoid and those with a vested interest.
Perhaps if GW spent less money in legal fees they could afford to lower the price of their product and not get undercut by such a VAST amount to where it becomes un unintelligent to get the real deal over a better quality, much cheaper fake.
pr0wler wrote: Any resolution to the concerns over toxic resin? Some good discussion, but I'm still pretty confused.
I guess as a precaution, wash with soap and water, don't handle/use without gloves, and use a dust/gas mask if necessary when working with it.
I can understand that the China resin might be potentially more toxic than the ones used at FW, but even if it was, would it be significant enough for the average hobbyist to worry about? I also wouldn't think that cast resin with 3-4 layers of paint over top would pose a health risk unless you're sanding it and breathing in any dust particles it might be giving off. But hey I could be wrong.
Aside from the fact that nobody has been able to suggest what about the resin would be toxic (ie a toxic alternative to the already incredibly cheap material that resin is) we have a user who was concerned enough to spend the money to have recast resin tested, only for the results to confirm it was only slightly more toxic than FW resin (ie essentially not toxic at all) so I'd say we have an answer good enough for all but the most paranoid and those with a vested interest.
I don't disagree with your points, but I thought the poster in question had the FW resin tested and it was slightly more toxic than GW plastic, not comparing China resin to FW resin, or did I misinterpret the post?
Azreal, you speak with certainty that fear of poisonous resins from China/Russia is a non-issue. Care to share your knowledge on why you think the safety of those materials are beyond questioning? I'd even open this question up to anyone else in the thread that is qualified to answer it. Concerns over toxic materials has kept me from purchasing non-counterfeit resin models Russia and China in the past so this is an area I'd like to learn more about.
As we have a little daughter, we had our stock of FW stuff checked. Resin (or rather: in general, production quality) used had a lower quality than comparable GW models and toxicity levels were slightly higher, but still far from being actually toxic. Stuff checked were a Giant Squigg, Squigg Gobbla, Fire Elemental, Tomb Stalker, 6 Sentry Pylons and 2 Pylons. Bought from 2 different retailers.
The poster in question tested FW stuff, not from China actually. I believe the comparison was FW resin with GW plastic, hence the slightly higher toxicity levels.
EDIT - not sure if he was talking about "China" FW stuff or models actually from Forgeworld.
EDIT #2 - Took a second look, it's a bit ambigous as he doesn't directly state his models are from China, but looks as though he had this non-FW resin models tested and had a slightly higher, yet still safe levels of toxicity compared to Forgeworld. Pretty safe to assume the majority, if not all, of the reliable recasters are simply using resin. Sure, it might not be the same grade as from Forgeworld, but it casts fine and assuming one is not a jackass...it shouldn't do any harm. Consider me sold, thanks for the clarification.
Even if the figure is slightly toxic, the paint fumes or thinner you use maybe more toxic, when primed painted they are sealed, unless they glow in the dark, then they need a Geiger teller check
Dosage makes the poison, people. Limit your dosage and you will be fine.
Don't huff the dust (or live in Cali - EVERYTHING in Cali gives you cancer, including and not limited to the state government) and take adequate precautions re: dust and fumes and you should be right.
I am the original poster that brought up about toxic materials. Again, if someone is doing something illegal like making knock offs,
then they may not care what materials they use and China is one of the countries that has the most news published about hazardous
materials being used in what should be safe products.
Genoside07 wrote: I am the original poster that brought up about toxic materials. Again, if someone is doing something illegal like making knock offs,
then they may not care what materials they use and China is one of the countries that has the most news published about hazardous
materials being used in what should be safe products.
That point was answered a page ago. Address the arguments when your point is challenged, don't just spread vague insinuations.
As a test, I've purchased some of the knock offs, these being Gal'Vorbak from Forge World. For all intents and purposes, the detail is pretty much spot on. The material is brittle and of course, it's probably toxic. However, with careful handling and common sense, you'll be fine.
I'm very sure the old lead miniatures were far more dangerous for us than any cheap knockoff resin is today. Turns out if you don't suck on it you're probably fine. And once its covered in paint its not going to hurt you anymore.
Just don't let little kids play around your workstation.
Grey Templar wrote: I'm very sure the old lead miniatures were far more dangerous for us than any cheap knockoff resin is today. Turns out if you don't suck on it you're probably fine. And once its covered in paint its not going to hurt you anymore.
Just don't let little kids play around your workstation.
I don't think so. Back in the days of old lead miniatures (I have a huge collection of them), all you ever did was clean off mold lines of relatively small models (Ogryns and Dreadnoughts were huge! LOL). There was no lead dust flying around.
With resin miniatures, and ESPECIALLY things worthy of being knocked off (large models), you must deal with resin gates, which are huge. When you file off stuff, there's just a lot more resin dust in the air. Now, granted, a lot of this is simply because new models are a lot larger. But it doesn't change that resin dust is a lung irritant, and you shouldn't be filing off your warlord titan without wearing some kind of mask, no different than if you're in a woodworking shop. Won't kill ya (at least not in the short term), but it isn't good for you.
Genoside07 wrote: I am the original poster that brought up about toxic materials. Again, if someone is doing something illegal like making knock offs,
then they may not care what materials they use and China is one of the countries that has the most news published about hazardous
materials being used in what should be safe products.
And let's ask the same questions again shall we?
Why would any recaster use a toxic compound when ordinary resin is already cheap and plentiful? What material is toxic enough to be problematic to the end user, cheap enough to be worth using over ordinary resin and have the properties needed to cast models reasonably effectively?
It don't matter to me..
Your choice..
Your money..
Just use your brain..
If its to good to be true.. it probably is..
Except it isn't too good to be true is it? It's people in a country with much lower living costs and overhead using a very elementary process to reproduce a substantially over valued product. If one were to use one's brain, one could easily figure out exactly where the savings are being made.
There's actual evidence supported by (AFAICS) pretty sound logic to support the fact that it really isn't toxic to the point of posing any real threat, if one were to use ones brain, that's the most likely conclusion. If one were to use baseless emotion and zero facts, then, sure, it's probably toxic.
I ended up with a China cast copy of the Aquila Lander so that I could harvest two missing parts for my own broken one. Forgeworld couldn't help me, and I had run out of options.
I will never sell the copy, because it's disrespectful, but if I hadn't bought it, I'd have a kilo of broken resin in my cupboard for several years.
At the same time I picked up a copy of Fulgrim (a kit I already had on order from FW) to compare to.
However the quality/toxicity commentary... Many of the people saying that the casts are better, are remembering that until very recently FW was a crapshoot in terms of QC. Since their on site store opened, their casting has improved dramatically, especially on large and multipart kits. I say this as someone who has had to return a kit no less than seven times in the past. I've had about a dozen different kits since (ranging from a £6 torso to a £80 dragon) and watched my friend buy a Warhound Titan, and the quality now is superb.
On the other hand, I watch and read recaster forums and reviews, and whilst the quality spanks the pre 2015 stuff hands down, it does not compete with the newer QC.
Some of the China casters are putting out such quantity that they cannot depend on using the cheapest material possible, it would make their jobs difficult. When working with the copied Aquila, I did notice the resin has a very strong chemical smell when carved. The material was brittle but springy, and not noticeably different to that used by most grey resin companies. When sanding I always used a respirator, but occasionally black tar would weep out when I left the pieces on my workbench overnight, and the ethereal screaming was pretty hard to deal with.
However the quality/toxicity commentary... Many of the people saying that the casts are better, are remembering that until very recently FW was a crapshoot in terms of QC.
You know what really sucks about FW's awesome customer service when replacing stuff that doesn't meet QC standards? It's stupidly expensive. I'll give you an example.
I bought a LE Centurion (the new $35 one). They charged me 12% sales tax on it (but I got free shipping, yay) at the point of purchase. Then they UPS'd it (even though I didn't ask for it, and didn't order enough to qualify for the express shipping). So UPS charged me $10 brokerage, plus another 12% for the sales tax again!
So now, I've paid 24%sales tax, pus a $10 brokerage fee. But the tabard was broken, and I emailed FW. They apologize profusely and send me out a new one for free. UPS.
I get it, UPS charges me another $10 brokerage, plus another 12% sales tax, on the free replacement. I mean, wtf.
So at the end of it, the $35 model cost me $74.80 LOL ($55 + 12% tax x 3). Though the first one was repairable, and they sent me a complete second model, including all the parts, so there's that. I'm not kidding about any of those numbers This was a real order (the centurion was GBP20) ! Though there was other stuff in the original order, so technically, the first $10 brokerage fee was spread around a little more.
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