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I was considering breaking my Finecast embargo for the Tyranid release, but after reading this thread, I think I will go back into my shell.

The pictures in this thread (and the linked blog) are horrendous. Those vanguard vets are atrocious.

Got my 25th anniversary mini today... mini itself not too bad, couple of bubbles here and there in what we now know to be the danger spots, pfist, any ribbing, etc... y'know... all the most difficult spots to fix lol.

Base has holes in it, straight up. Not big ones, but there is one part of it that is membrane thin.

Flag is a mess. At first I was happy because it didn't have any airbubbles in it... Then I looked at it as a whole lol... Realized it is bent like a bow, and that the two halves of it were about 1-2mm off, creating a quite breathtaking seam...

40 buck miniature.... :(

Hi Everyone, I posted this earlier in the wrong thread. Thanks for pointing that out Skarwael.

So Let me tell you a story, a tale of interest, or lack there of... So like many others, I couldn't resist the 40k 25th Anniversary model. I had never purchased a Finecast model and decided that this would be the one to start with. I purchased it from the retail store so I would be able to exchange it. I got there 10 mins after it opened, lucky I called first, and got the last model. With no Exchange option I was told I would have to call customer service.

So I called CS earlier today... 'I just got off the phone with CS. They told me that they would mail me a shipping label so I could send it back to them. After they have inspected it they will send me a replacement.

I asked what are the chances the second one will be perfect and I wont have to send it back? After a long awkward moment of silence he said.. well we ship a lot of finecast and its a lot of stuff for quality control to inspect.... Metal models and plastics have flaws too....he just BS me more. So I say well if I get a second model and that's messed up too, can I get my money back? Well we'll talk about that when you get it! I started to get angry now!.. I just got off the phone so my rage wouldn't consume me! ' I didn't get angry at the customer service rep cause he is just a guy like me, doing his job but I'd sure like to kick GW's policies right in the Bolter hole!

I returned to drown my woes and vent my frustrations in this forum. I found this thread and saw other people were able to get a replacements right away. So I reloaded and headed back to the front(Play metallica: disposable heroes here).

CS call # 2

It happened that I spoke with the same CS rep as I did previously. So it didn't take long to explain to the point that I had read about other people getting models right away. He assured me that no CS reps in U.S.A were doing this and that everyone had to send them back regardless of location or purchase method. I said that this didn't sound right ect, he let me voice me concerns, I ranted a little about this being my first Fincast mini ect... We talked back and forth but nothing came of it and we said goodbye.

Shot down for the second time today I decided to just call back tomorrow and ask for a full refund. A few minutes later my phone rang with an unsual number! I answered and the CS rep! He told me that there had been a mistake..... Someone had given him bad information. They could indeed send me a new model without needing to receiving mine first!! I exclaimed 'That's Great!'.

Ok Not sure how that kind of mistake could have happened, or how many people it may have already happened too today.... What do you guys make of this? What are my chances of getting a second model that's prefect?

The Helpful Farseer and The Disapproving Necron want to know what you think? But you might not want to quote this whole thing.. Minor Mess-up or Epic Fail -up?





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A Town Called Malus wrote:

MikeMcSomething wrote:

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

filbert wrote:Can't prove it and it really is wild speculation on my part but it wouldn't surprise me if that is exactly what is happening to returns - sent back to GW factory, resealed and sent back out to be sold, at least for all bar the worst examples.

Then why would you make such an assertion? Especially as a moderator, you should be more careful making incendiary comments such as this.

Yeah your incendiary comments (offered partially in jest, I'm sure) might set off a chain reaction and...oh, right. Nothing will happen. Continue offering discussion in a discussion thread.

I think it would be a valid point if it hadn't already been said once in this thread. I'm pretty sure the consensus then was that it was illegal to re-sell them. By accepting that they are flawed and replacing the models GW has said that they are not fit for purpose. To then re-sell a product which is deemed not fit for purpose (without it being refurbished to make it fir for purpose) is against the law.

Wrong. Malus, and whoever said it before, you are assuming GW production views these as rejectable flaws. They do not. GW views these as acceptable casts which is why they are being sold in the first place. In retail, customers return stuff all the time for no reason related to the standard of quality of the product as established by the manufacturer, including GW. The manufacturer determines critical product flaws, not the customer. If returned product meets the standard established by GW then it will be re sold if they have a process for doing so.

Everyone should re-watch Ed Norton's explanation of recalls on Fight Club. Sheds a wonderful light on why finecrap is still being sold as is, and why we will not see any improvements until significant numbers of people STOP BUYING. If cost of reducing returns exceeds cost of replacements, do you revise/improve the process? No. Its all business.

Edit - readability.

Grimtuff wrote:

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:

Gharron wrote:Got my castellan crowe and draigo in the mail today. Open it up and crowe has a giant hole in his backpack where the vents would be....draigo's sword is so flimsy it could come off at any moment....sigh...This is why I KNEW buying finecast was a bad idea...

Would you be able to post some pic's please? I guess it's off to GW CS for you. I also guess you could also try to find the metal versions of them ( if they where made in metal im not a GK player so I don't know off hand personally).

Both were metal originally, yes.

I definitely can. I can show you where the green stuff I had to use came straight through his backpack and on draigo (didn't notice til after I posted it) that his non helmted head DOESN'T have a "triangle" to go in the "triangle" slot in his armor....sigh I KNEW this was gonna happen I even made a thread before I broke down and bought them >=[

So I opened my new replacements - the Medusa seems fine, the Archon has tons of flash and holes in the bottom of his cape, and the Incubi weapons all come on the same sprue, and the entire sprue is slightly warped, so every Klaive is warped and wobbly looking. Sweet! I'm sure opening the Archon blister will reveal more awesomeness.

Ok so my order of 5 25th marines turned up.

I didn't have high hopes but its a great looking model

Not 1 complete useable model or combination of models.

The powerfist was fethed up on all of them.

Some stunning bits of model though - its so frustrating!

Pictures here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?jrfiaieyux8y9

Also This is a joke the one with, bubbles and fuzzy detail is the original the nice cast is the cheap knock off. You know its a knock off because its metal

http://www.mediafire.com/?w5mqon8nd16b2

seems the best way to get a good model is wait for the knock offs - Oh yeah - I hate recasters - but if they are the only way to get good minis............

Sorted

seems the best way to get a good model is wait for the knock offs - Oh yeah - I hate recasters - but if they are the only way to get good minis............

Sorted

MiLkiT wrote:

I'm glad I don't like marines so never ordered this thing.

On a side note - is anyone else a little creeped out by that farseer?

narkuk wrote:Ok so my order of 5 25th marines turned up.

I didn't have high hopes but its a great looking model

Not 1 complete useable model or combination of models.

The powerfist was fethed up on all of them.

Some stunning bits of model though - its so frustrating!

Pictures here:

Also This is a joke the one with, bubbles and fuzzy detail is the original the nice cast is the cheap knock off. You know its a knock off because its metal


seems the best way to get a good model is wait for the knock offs

ot a couple of issues gimme a minute

When you call to return them, keep them on the phone as long as you possibly can, then keep that persons supervisor on the phone as long as you possibly can and then supervisor, etc etc.

The only way they'll wake up is if it starts costing them to replace them. Or they'll just raise their prices again.

Gotta love GW.

Archon has bubbles in his cape, I would go to the effort of uploading pictures but this thread has like 500 of them already

MiLkiT wrote:
The Helpful Farseer and The Disapproving Necron want to know what you think? But you might not want to quote this whole thing.. Minor Mess-up or Epic Fail -up?

So you got it a GW and called customer service? Why didnt you open it there and demand a refund and get the store lacky to order you a new one? My Groteques were replaced repeated within only a few days.

mwnciboo wrote:Bottomline it's a great idea, they just need to refine the process or discover a new method or use some kind of pressurised inert gas method to force the resin into all the parts of mould and then spin out the air bubbles. Their Share price is amazing at the moment, and shares and the revenue from them are supposed to be used on R&D, new manufacturing techniques and equipment to keep ahead of the opposition and keep your revenue stream solid.

I believe that they already do this. The Coteaz model had a number of vents that didn't actually vent (and could not have, or the mold would not have opened), so they were probably there to give the now-compressed air bubbles an escape path. But pressure casting isn't necessary for a good cast. It certainly helps but it's not a necessity.

Also, at least in my case it appears that the cast was nearly perfect. It's what happened afterward that caused problems.

mwnciboo wrote:There is always a way, they just need to spend a bit more time on R&D and stop the rush to production. 20% more time on Development will result in alot less stress in the long term although if you are happy to have an overloaded unnecessary CS department go for it. For a company that is supposed to be run by suits, they are failing to follow manufacturing best practice.

There is a way - mix the resin correctly, wait the required amount of time before demolding, and don't pry the model out of the mold with a screwdriver. The tough part is the mold design. The actual casting is rather easy. They have access to experts. Why are there any problems at all? I learned this crap from Youtube for chrissakes and I don't have issues like this.

@n00ber: what you're describing is essentially gravity castings. Look up spin casting with vulcanized rubber disks and you'll see why they vent like they do. Also most of the voids you're seeing aren't from improper resin mix, its because resin or plasti-resin has a much lower specific gravity than any metal alloy and therefore can't compress the air properly when centrifugal force is applied. Notice those little blade-like pieces of flash on your metal mini's? They're essentially slits cut into the mold that allow the metal to compress air into and away from the main cast, "resin" simply can't do that "as is".

Wait...they're just re-using their metal casting equipment for resin?

I think that I see the problem now. It's a shame that they don't.

Yep. Basically...and adding a pretty (sometimes) sprue to make them tie-in with their injection molded plastics.

winterdyne wrote:China?

After getting four out of five bad finecast models, China is exactly where I went to get my Draigo.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

filbert wrote:Can't prove it and it really is wild speculation on my part but it wouldn't surprise me if that is exactly what is happening to returns - sent back to GW factory, resealed and sent back out to be sold, at least for all bar the worst examples.

Then why would you make such an assertion? Especially as a moderator, you should be more careful making incendiary comments such as this.

OK, so to address one point first - I am a Swap Mod on this site. That I chose to offer my time and effort to moderate threads containing miniature trades in no way impinges on my views or positions nor does being a Swap Mod offer any more gravitas or weight to my posts any more than any other user. At no time has Yakface or any other member of the Dakka hierarchy asked my to censure or adjust my views to toe some sort of line in the sand (if they did ask and there was a good reason for it, I might consider it but that's another story). Also, when I post as a Swap Mod in an 'official' capacity, I do so in red - same as every other Mod here (some choose slightly different colours). This is done to differentiate between when the Mod hat is 'on' or not.

Now that that's done - what follows is utter speculation and my own opinion. I only offer as a prelude to discussion - make of it what you will.

As has been pointed out, there is a bit of a grey area when it comes to determining whether a product is of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose. All of this is covered (at least in the UK) by consumer statutory rights (lots of info about what is acceptable, rights as a consumer etc here)

Anyway, you are perfectly entitled to return said miniature and claim it is not of an acceptable quality as per your consumer rights. GW could argue the toss if they so wanted and deny you a refund and if you wanted to take it further you would need to take it to trading standards who would decide who was right. Obviously, in most case it is fairly obvious whether a defect is apparent or not and 99.9% of retailers will offer a no-quibble returns policy - it's simply good customer service to do so and in most cases, it costs them virtually nothing to return and replace something.

The reason why I postulated that GW might be repackaging and re-selling returns is down to an earlier suggestion that was made combined with some of the evidence seen thus far. We know that the Finecast process is inherently more labour intensive than metal production, both in terms of raw numbers produced per hour and in terms of the labour involved in removing casts from moulds etc etc. Some of this was seen in the early days of Finecast; models were appearing with defects that posters (experienced in resin production) pointed out had occurred due to rushing mould release, not allowing resin to cure properly etc. Again, it's putting 2 and 2 together but I think it is a valid suggestion that potentially this was occurring because the manufacturing team were under pressure to get models out, due in part to the 'big bang' release of Finecast (as opposed to slowly introducing it) and the sheer consumer demand.

This is different to a metal model which can be easily melted and recast and the sheer volume of production is able to cope with any returns. I think that because Finecast is slower to produce, has a higher rate of defects it would seem than metal and has a higher rate of return, that all of this is putting pressure on the supply chain, culminating in a desire to re-sell returned miniatures. Why? Because GW would know full well that a goodly proportion would not be returned once again either because a) the customer isn't experienced enough to recognise the flaws or b) the customer can't be bothered to return it and is willing to put up with it.

Finecast literally costs pennies per miniature to make, that is not in dispute. What is more valuable is the time and labour involved and I think that is where the squeeze on the chain is and that is why we are still seeing the problems that we are seeing - the process and production line has not shaken down to the point where it can handle the volume needed.

Of course, if true, this raises more questions, like why did they choose to replace such a large range of models on launch instead of staggering and why did they choose to replace metal casting with a method that isn't (yet) fit for purpose but who knows?

opened my 25th anniversary model today.

A quick report of the condition of the casting

1. scenic base is paper thin in places, if held up to light i can see right through.
2. scenic base has small wholes in it.
3. marine foot has an air bubble.
4. base of leg armour is miscast.
5. powerfist fingers are missing.

im going to call CS and see what they say, as i dont like the attitude of the instore staff of " just fix it with greenstuff". More sales of product at my cost !!!!

brainscan wrote:opened my 25th anniversary model today.

A quick report of the condition of the casting

1. scenic base is paper thin in places, if held up to light i can see right through.
2. scenic base has small wholes in it.
3. marine foot has an air bubble.
4. base of leg armour is miscast.
5. powerfist fingers are missing.

im going to call CS and see what they say, as i dont like the attitude of the instore staff of " just fix it with greenstuff". More sales of product at my cost !!!!

Funny fact.

We're all noticing the same flaws.

The base is paper thin. See my earlier attached photos.
The legs seem to like air bubbles and miscasting.
The powerfist fingers like air bubbles.
The banner is remarkably hit and miss.

Ravenous D wrote:

MiLkiT wrote:
The Helpful Farseer and The Disapproving Necron want to know what you think? But you might not want to quote this whole thing.. Minor Mess-up or Epic Fail -up?

So you got it a GW and called customer service? Why didnt you open it there and demand a refund and get the store lacky to order you a new one? My Groteques were replaced repeated within only a few days.

Because, as evidenced by others in this thread, as the model is limited GW were being very reluctant to swap the model there and then. Remember, it's all about the almighty dollar. If a customer goes through several of the store's stock to find a decent one that is lost sales for the store. So GW is making/advising (delete as applicable) customers with this particular model to go through CS to get their replacement.

Simples.

...which is a breach of statutory rights in most countries. You are actually entitled to ask for a full refund on the spot. You can then spend your refund immediately on a new product. This is the mechanism I'd advocate as it costs money for the firm to issue the refund, and returned stock has to be logged as returned, rather than any other fiddle for writing off 'dead stock'.

n00ber wrote:Wait...they're just re-using their metal casting equipment for resin?

I think that I see the problem now. It's a shame that they don't.

coyotius wrote:Yep. Basically...and adding a pretty (sometimes) sprue to make them tie-in with their injection molded plastics.

This isn't true, as evidenced by the mold parts that are being found in some finecast models. The bits found have been silicone, metal mold are vulcanised rubber. beleive this confusion has come about because GW stated are using the same masters and the new molds would pick up the existing detail better.

Tying in with the look of other sprues? Why?

There does appear to be a monumental Feth up in the processing in these kits, certainly this could be because GWs metal casting experts are now resin casting newbs.

Re refunds, should you want one I would expect that this is to be done at the point of purchase (or via phone if it is GW). The usual course of action is that replacement is done via the point of purchase not the manufacturer, credit to GW for relacing things directly, but if you want to change/refund your finecast at your FLGS the they should be doing that and not pointing you to GW.

winterdyne wrote:...which is a breach of statutory rights in most countries. You are actually entitled to ask for a full refund on the spot. You can then spend your refund immediately on a new product. This is the mechanism I'd advocate as it costs money for the firm to issue the refund, and returned stock has to be logged as returned, rather than any other fiddle for writing off 'dead stock'.

I'm all in favour of them asking me to keep the faulty one and sending me out new ones until they realise as it's a limited run they have none left to send - because then I will kick up the royal stink.

*Quiet voice* Papa needs another Tervigon....or a Tyrannofex will do too....

Just been asked to return all 5 models for 5 that will be checked.

I recieved a Finecast Casket of Souls and overall it was really well done. Despite the robes on the keeper taking about 20 mins to clean alone.

There was one bubble sink on the skull on a guards sword haft.

And the base had some thinness, LGS took care of both easily.

If I don't get a good* LE marine, I'll move on to something else in finecast and continue getting replacements until I get a good* cast, just for fun. Something I want though, so it'll be Skaven or High Elf in nature...

*: I will be realistic about what constitutes 'good' in finecast - minor pin-prick bubbles are to be expected. Missing detail or mould slip is not.

notprop wrote:
There does appear to be a monumental Feth up in the processing in these kits, certainly this could be because GWs metal casting experts are now resin casting newbs.

This. But it does raise the question why didn't they use the in house expertise of FORGEWORLD, or spend more time ironing out the manufacturing Process.

If you ran a Bakery or other food production line the same way, you would go out of business

There was a chap earlier on in the post who had experience of resin casting and had identified the type of resin used, as well as his theory as to why FC was having problems. I believe he identified it as quite a low-grade resin, and couldn't believe that GW hadn't invested in a different type of pressure cooker which would have eliminated some of the problems.

narkuk wrote:seems the best way to get a good model is wait for the knock offs - Oh yeah - I hate recasters - but if they are the only way to get good minis............

This is the sad state of affairs that GW has led us to. :/