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Just a little something I heard from my local Store Manager....

It would appear Forgeworld are keen to make the delays of Apocalypse a thing of the past. The main cause was the 'by hand' nature of the resin casting process. Not only is this fairly time consuming, but also, it's not something you can just get some mook from the local job centre in to do, as it requires a certain amount of skill and know how.

To combat this in as financially sensible a way possible, members of the Forgeworld Staff have been investigating a machine from Japan which does Resin. Obviously, if this works out, it means Forgeworld can up their production levels somewhat. In theory, if they get the machine(s) sufficient in number to cover current out put, it means the hand casters can be trained to use them, and when they get behind, put the machines on full, and get the operators hand casting again.

Thought this might be of interest. And who knows, it might even prevent price rises in the future....

This is great news, do you have a linky for this machine?

Afraid not. This is about a rumoury as a rumour gets.

All from the mouth of a Manager!

Actually, thats somewhat misleading. The Manager informed me the were looking at the machine and it's capabilties, the rest is mostly conjecture and analysis on my behalf....

Next time you see that mouth, ask if i can speak a linky for me lol, thank for the rumour anyway, sound great anyway, i guess time will tel

Yarp.

I certainly hope it's true. And depending on economy of scale, it might even facilitate *lower* prices than we currently pay. Though of course, any money reduction would have to be weighed up against the requisite increase in demand, which if not balanced by the machines capability would render the whole exercise (i.e. increasing production, reducing waiting, thus increasing customer satisfaction) somewhat null!

Yeah, this is true, I spoke to them about it at GDUK. Be a while before it's up and running apparently and will be... I think.. mainly used for the most popular models ordered.

Lower prices ? You're a funny man !

You have me all excited, even if it doesnt drop price it should keep them steady until such time right?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It would appear Forgeworld are keen to make the delays of Apocalypse a thing of the past. The main cause was the 'by hand' nature of the resin casting process. Not only is this fairly time consuming, but also, it's not something you can just get some mook from the local job centre in to do, as it requires a certain amount of skill and know how.

Looking at the two (fooled me twice, shame on me) FW items I've ever purchased, I don't think that randomly hired unskilled hobos could do much worse. That the FW mooks think what they do is sooooo difficult that noone else could ever do it says more about their mentality than their skill.

the machien exist in asia but its not that goed in detailt figuriens.
dere even is a 3de resin coping machien being testid in japain ( long live watching way to much natinal geograpics )

Another side effect of this would be that if you have a machine mass producing the parts, this would mean less labour. Less labour = lower costs. Lower costs = lower prices. Or at least, it would do, but Forgeworld will still continue to charge as much..... :-(

if its the machien I saw on tv then ist goeing to be a price in creas is more expensif than a plastic mold.

Sounds like the 3d one.....

And it shouldn't make things more expensive. A machine like will eventually pay for itself in terms of heightened production and reduced Man hours. If it can do the work of 2 men, then it saves the wage of 2 men.

the one I saw was still being testit and a well traind men whit experians code do the job juist as quike and whit beater detail. ( thats the new machien for detailt stuf) there are machiens that work whit resin now but only for low qwalety jouwels.
lookt the coping machien in up again and its a combination af resin and ruber that it uses to make it moddels.

Howdy,

Oddly enough, and this disturbed me a bit, my recent Forgeworld order (ordered on 9/29/08, delivered on 10/2/08) including a few miscellaneous bitz and bobs and a Chaos Warhound. In the upper left hand corner of the FW bag (yes the warhound came in a bag unlike my first one which was nicely boxed, and then various sub assemblies were boxed again) was a standard template small oval "made in china" sticker.

None of the other items had this, and some were fairly recently released models.

Take it for what it is worth, but it did......um....... make me go "urr"!?!??!

Mike Slaughter

the low kwaletie machien i chinees.
( girlfriend has a fuw of thos jouwels becose they are cute )

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:And who knows, it might even prevent price rises in the future....

If anything Grotsnik, this'll cause a price rise.

BYE

Don't see why. I doubt Forgeworld are short of profits to pay for it with.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Don't see why. I doubt Forgeworld are short of profits to pay for it with.

You don't think that GW, or any subsidiary of them, is going to actually EAT the costs of a technological upgrade. Do you?
If "The Dub" pays a couple hundred thousand bucks on a new machine... or even a couple DOZEN thousand... they'll definitely pass that price increase on.

...and I agree that any unskilled laborer with (minimum) half a brain can be taught to cast resin. It's not neurosurgery.

Eric

We shall see. The theory, as I stated above, is that the Machine will allow for increased producitivity, meaning the cost of producing each kit is reduced.

Price cut is unlikely, but it does enlarge the profit margin enough that small increases could be absorbed.

I would be very surprised to see a price drop. However, from the sound of people here it would make a lot of people happy if there was a quality increase and less backlog.

lord_blackfang wrote:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It would appear Forgeworld are keen to make the delays of Apocalypse a thing of the past. The main cause was the 'by hand' nature of the resin casting process. Not only is this fairly time consuming, but also, it's not something you can just get some mook from the local job centre in to do, as it requires a certain amount of skill and know how.

Looking at the two (fooled me twice, shame on me) FW items I've ever purchased, I don't think that randomly hired unskilled hobos could do much worse. That the FW mooks think what they do is sooooo difficult that noone else could ever do it says more about their mentality than their skill.

I assume you have vast experience in high-volume resin casting on which you base that assertion.

Lol I was about to say that. As a Materials Engineering graduate, I can tell you that resin is a bitch!!

Those machines are quite the investment, not just in building one to the desired specs, but also delivering it, installing it and of course, training people to use it.

We'll see if it'll become an improvement on quality because as of right now their quality is utter

I have very limited resin casting experience, but yeah, I was surprised how much was art more than science. Although I also learned how much lower quality FW's resin is than the stuff I was using.

Price decreases will never happen. But if the backlog and and quality increase happens, I think it's a major plus. Because we play ridiculous money and wait for extended periods for often-mediocre casts of great sculpts.

Agamemnon2 wrote:
I assume you have vast experience in high-volume resin casting on which you base that assertion.

No, but I have a fistful of resin bitz that I can't use because they are so badly cast. I don't need a diploma to see that whoever cast them didn't know what he was doing, and that the high and mighty Forgeworld doesn't have anything in the way of quality control, other than complaining and waiting a few weeks or months for replacements. Because apparently that is easier than examining the parts they cast before packing them up.

I am tempted to check on my order when I pick it up from the FW stand when I go to Frenzy next month, though I doubt that would make any impact on them. They already know the problems but do very little to fix them in a logical way.

gorgon wrote:I have very limited resin casting experience, but yeah, I was surprised how much was art more than science. Although I also learned how much lower quality FW's resin is than the stuff I was using.

I can only assume FW buys their resin in bulk, desperate to cut corners, and opting for the cheapest and lowest-quality slag that will hold the detail they need for each individual job. They're frantically pounding a round peg into a Y-shaped hole with every model they make, being vastly too popular for their own good, and for their production model. An unenviable lot, really. I can only suppose so many bad casts are let through because the order volume demands it. Every part, no matter how poorly done, is sent out to fulfill the order of yet another angry consumer. Personally, I doubt this is done by the people doing the casting, but rather by the people responsible for putting orders together, (supposedly) checking their contents and sending them out. Hypothetically, it wouldn't make sense to waste resin-casters' time-unit zots on something a mail order troll could do.

I still maintain that it's not easy to cast resin at all, as anyone who's tried it will attest to. It's even harder to automate it. Even demoulding a piece can be beyond a machine's skill, given how fine and fragile the detail can be and how soft the mould. It's not like plastic where you can just use ejection pins to pop it out, or like metal where the part's hard enough to withstand being shaken loose. If indeed there is a way to make casting automation happen, I'd expect the Japanese would be the people to do it, as they seem to produce a staggering amount of very popular resin kits, a lot of them either anime/manga characters or girls in bikinis. Or both.

I can bleive thisrumour, Gw have been heavily investing in production technology, principally in order to keep a manufactiring base in the UK. Even when a lot of the competition is heading east for manufacture.

In this I have a lot of respect for GW.

WD's are being printed in Poland though. Italy also had printing rights for some time, so it's not all UK anymore.

Orlanth wrote:I can bleive thisrumour, Gw have been heavily investing in production technology, principally in order to keep a manufactiring base in the UK. Even when a lot of the competition is heading east for manufacture.

In this I have a lot of respect for GW.

I'm with you there. I give them a lot of credit for keeping jobs "at home" instead of sending them off. Hopefully, they'll stick with that.

That being said, it might be a smart investment for them to open a center over here, in the "midwest" to handle their North American (or North and South American) orders, and let the UK handle the rest of the world. It would save them money (Dollars being cheaper than Pounds), double their facilities and fill orders faster. If they had a faster response time and a slightly less expensive product, I'd imagine that their sales would shoot even higher, thus giving them more profit.

Eric