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Looking forward to seeing the results, the only thing I'd say is:

Are your windows cracked? If not, the interior of your car is liable to be much hotter than 86, (though under 140 as you mentioned) and it'd be nice to just have a feel for "how hot it got". Maybe leaving a thermometer in the car (or two, one in the shade, one next to the models) that you could check after say, 2 hours, then again right before you open the car?

Here's to hoping you don't come back to a misshapen blob!

Mad4Minis wrote:$33?!?!?!?!?!????? Holy feth, thats crazy. I dont normally complain about GW prices, but wow.

Thats what i thought too! Why would anyone pay that much for a LOTR mini all choices...

Windows not cracked. So it is as oven-like as it can get. I don't have a thermometer but I do have my car's external temp as a guide.

RESULTS TIME:

So after 4 hours, it is 91 degrees out. This is a pretty average car temp.


No visible change or drooping really. Nothing unreasonable so far. The original melting gandalf had his horse collapse under him in room temperature by sitting in the sun on a window sill. I would say my car is hotter than the inside of anyone's house and anyone's window sill. I would say there would have to be some major flaws for shadowfax to collapse from just heat and gravity.

So I decided to 'poke' the models to see how flimsey they are.

Plastic = Rock hard
PVC white plastirod = bendable, but pretty ridgid, softer than GW plastic
Finecast = wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwoooooooooooooah! Not quite spagetti but more like a copper wire. It bends... well... Picture time:


That is gravity of the model and me picking up by the staff. Yup, it is soft. Immediately after putting it back down, within 5 seconds it slowly returned to its original shape. I suspect that unless COOLED in the new position (and even if cooled) it has memory and will return to shape.

Gandalf's sword was much more rigid and did not bend nearly as much. I would say it is twice the thickness.

The next test I did was push down on Shadowfax's head to see how much 'give' the legs had. He is basically a tripod of 2 legs and a tail. By applying substantial pressure I was able to make the whole model 'bend' down. Much more pressure than the staff. Letting go and he went back to his regular shape immediately.

Analysis:
*The model will not collapse onto itself under regular gravity and heat so far.
*SMALL PARTS become really soft in a 90 degree car!!! Thicker parts become less soft. There seems to be some 'memory' which models return to when cooled.

Not sure how I feel yet. I don't have any models this thin. Thicker parts like ork weapons are not going to easily warp in my 91 degree car. The next step will be packing all 3 models in a figure case and letting them sit with foam pushing on the parts of the model. The way to BEND resin is to hold it firm until it 'cools' to get the new shape. So foam should accomplish that if it is an issue.

I am going to bring them in for now and let them return to room temp before I do the figure case test.

(I will recreate this all at the beach with hopefully hotter temps, but this is a low-end baseline)






Automatically Appended Next Post:

fire4effekt wrote:

Mad4Minis wrote:$33?!?!?!?!?!????? Holy feth, thats crazy. I dont normally complain about GW prices, but wow.

Thats what i thought too! Why would anyone pay that much for a LOTR mini all choices...

Because the original model which melted to a puddle of goo at room temp was a Gandalf... It is part of the bit!

Very interesting.

When the experiment is concluded, I'd recommend that you turn your posts into an article, for posterity.

Uh how dare you actually use empirical evidence instead of knee jerk "observations" and hearsay

You apologist!@%$@#

/sarcasm

(Btw this isnt defending the high price point + miscasts, but merely the absurdity that is people claiming models melt in average temperatures and having no real evidence. It's also easier to flame me In Pms since I tend not to check threads once all of relevance has been said)

If it's 90 outside and the car is closed, you're probably looking at 100+ degrees in there, so they are appearing to be fairly sturdy thus far.

I think one key thing to consider, since not everyone has resin casted, is that sometimes you get less than optimal "mixes" (of 2 part resins, i dont know the nature of what GW uses), which could cause some differences in properties.

I say this as a "that other guys windowsill experiment could still be fer real" note, he may have just had a bad batch.

This is SCIENCE!

Excited for the end result.

Prius!?! They will melt from shame!!!

j/k

targetawg wrote:

I say this as a "that other guys windowsill experiment could still be fer real" note, he may have just had a bad batch.

I think his Gandalf did collapse... But even he admits that it didn't prove the firestorm 'finecast melts to puddles' that people were attributing.

Honestly, anything that is BATCH 0, anything could happen from bubbles, hollow legs, bad mix of resin... who knows. Those people had valid observations of their product.

I this is a BATCH 3 Gandalf and reasonably representative of what GW claims a fully functional Finecast model should be. Not saying there are not flaws, but if you get a good one, this is close to what you should expect in regards to heat issues

And I need to drive a Prius to save money on gas to pay for my wargaming budget.

I like this. I'm interested to see what could happen to the models when placed in foam.

Bravo, sir, for science!

It's funny (and a bit annoying) that the resin returns to its original shape when it cools. I have tried straightening a slight bend in a sword using hot water, but it has now bent back again.

Is more severe treatment required?

Nay.

You bend it using hot water, then dip it in cold quickly so it can't bend back.

Flashman wrote:It's funny (and a bit annoying) that the resin returns to its original shape when it cools. I have tried straightening a slight bend in a sword using hot water, but it has now bent back again.

Is more severe treatment required?

Other resin/plastics, it usually take extreme heat then quick cooling. I do it all the time with PVC. I usually boil it like spaghetti then position while holding it in an open freezer.

While returning to shape is good for potential unwanted bends... it is bad for people correcting a bend!

Interesting. What I would be curious to know at this point, and is probably the subject of a completely different experiment with different controls, is how well the hypothetical paint job on said staff would hold up under flux like that.

@ Kan & nkelsch

Ta very muchly. I will give that a go

Excellent posting! Thanks for doing it, was interesting to see the preliminary results.

I was actually the most shocked by the price sticker for a Gandalf.

I don't think Gandalf is worth $33 regardless of the outcome, that's absurd.

I find the flexibility of the resin under heat unsurprising. My experience has been the 'grain' always wins after heating and bending and cooling etc.

At any rate for the price point being asked, I don't think one should be obligated to fix such flaws.

Finally, I KNOW when you bend a metal model it stays and I KNOW you don't have to heat it up, and I KNOW what would have happened in this experiment from the beginning with a metal example. It would be fine.

I appreciate someone taking the hit and doing some proper testing on heat durability and paint stripping on the new resins. Kudos!

I applied a few coats of paint to a sprue and let it dry before putting it into some Fairy Power Spray - although it was weeks old and more like a gloop at this stage. The paint came off fine, left a darkened mark where the undercoat had been but was weaker - I'll try it with new Power Spray to see what happens but I can see it being a pain to scrub off a fully painted/assembled mini, escpecially if the finecast is weakened.

infinite_array wrote:I like this. I'm interested to see what could happen to the models when placed in foam.

Bravo, sir, for science!

GLADos would be so proud! this is a cool thread though! also, was that straight jacket GW official, if not...shame on you .
lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:
the jacket comment is referencing flashman's earlier comment...

So they sat in the car for the rest of the day, got around to 94 degrees outside. No visible warping due to heat. I could wiggle stuff around and I pushed it in far directions and it would return to normal position.

I brought them in, and let them return to room temp.

Now for test 2:

When stuffed in a mini case, and left in my trunk, will they warp by being held in pressure conditions?

I need feedback... We all agree that there are irresponsible ways of transporting minis, and while I don't expect people to have foam-cut exact holes for the model, I also don't expect it is reasonable to stuff a mini in a hole that is too small and put too much pressure that would bend a metal model. I am trying to recreate an average REASONABLE transport. Not someone transporting Golden Demon models in 400$ cases and not a 12 year old with a shoebox.

Here is my scenario, please provide feedback before I kick it off if you have any:

*GW black case.
*Basic GW foam with GW hole slots.
*Foot gandalf will go in a regular hole, obviously his staff will overflow.
*Horse gandalf will go in a larger area with the expectation of being smooshed into place on a 25mm foam tray. This means there will be pressure. This is a reasonable transport with models I would do with metal and plastic.



Does this seem reasonable? Am I being too irresponsible? Am I being too safe to get results? If the packing in the case is questionable, then the results mean nothing. This is the BARE MINIMAL transport conditions that I would consider before I would start blaming the transportation, not the model. The pressure should distort the horses legs if they are capable of being distored. That is something I would not expect from a plastic model.

I am moving forward with this test for the next few days until we refine it. I will try other things as well. I would like to get a good testplan by the weekend for extended exposure.

Note: I also am going to try this once models are painted. I want to see how wigglying and softness happens under paint and if it damages paint. That will be round 2!

I like your thought process. Yes, that looks perfectly reasonable (looks like my mini case).

I would be careful about manipulating the mini's too much once your main experiment starts, you might weaken the integrity of the parts and artificially bias your experiment towards mini failure.

Good luck! Anxiously looking forward to seeing how things progress.

Cool experiment, I await your results

(My prediction: Gandalf in trunk makes it through "shadow and flame" just fine... while the one on the dash gets a bit bent out of shape)

Edit: Oh, wait, looks like you already tried it out in the car for a day? From your OP I thought you were going to leave it at OC for 5 days...

RiTides wrote:

Edit: Oh, wait, looks like you already tried it out in the car for a day? From your OP I thought you were going to leave it at OC for 5 days...

I am, but today was a sunny hot day... too good not to pre-test.

The OC test will happen this weekend once the scenarios are defined. Probably foot gandalf on the dash, horse gandalf in the case (because he has more pressure points)

I figure if it failed in pre-test for short heat and 90 degree days, then it will super fail the beach test

The foam looks good to me. Hoping your foam tests are as possessive as your dash test so far. I'd really like to get some of the finecast but have been uncertain over the heat issues so I'm quite thankful of your testing this out for us.

Hey, I'm going to be down in Bethany Beach this weekend. We should get a game in!!!!

Great experiment. Done objectivly and without alot of BS factoring into the conversation.

When you leave him in the car, leave a thermometer in there in the case, and in the car.


Really good job your doing there. way to go.

Great thread. Good to see a logical approach to testing out this issue (and having given you a compliment, I CERTAINLY don't need to resort to snarky comments about any other poster, right? <right --Janthkin>).

Initial evidence when Finecast was first released suggested that finecast had issues with melting at lower temperatures than other minis. I think this test will shed some further light on whether this was solely an issue with batch 0 or if it is still present with other batches. Pending on the results of the beach test, if I were to offer a hypothesis I’d say the uber melting was as a result of batch 0 (which shouldn’t have been released to the public IMO). That being said, with bubbling still present on batch 3 minis, Finecast should still be avoided IMO.

Personally I’d like to see a comparative test with a batch 0 Finecast mini versus other batches (and maybe a resin product from another company as well).

Augustus wrote:I don't think Gandalf is worth $33 regardless of the outcome, that's absurd.

You've clearly not seen how obscenely good value for points Gandalf the Grey is in WOTR

(watching the tests with interest. I've an awful lot of figures to buy in time for Games Day this year, some of which are available as Finecast: I'd like to know in advance if I'll want to hunt down the old metals instead)

Will be following this thread with great interest.

I'm the author of the actual original blog. I'm actually looking forward to seeing what happens as well. I've left my Dwarf Gyrocopter in the loft room, out of the sunlight to see what happens, remembering this is a day 1 purchase as well and there has been some slight warp on the blades... no I'm not putting pictures up, not after last time. lol. However its no where near as bad as my Gandalf was. As I've said this leads me to believe my Gandalf was highly faulty and should never have been allowed near the shelves. I've had people in the industry contact me and explain or try to explain what they think is going on. I've been told finecast is a polyutherane with a synthetic rubber on more than one occasion by different people and that would explain the lower temps the stuff requires to become malleable (not melting) and also the memory the substance seems to have. I took the original blog down due to threats and just outright mis-information that was attributed to me. I never posted a picture of my Gandalf in a puddle of goo as people seemed to be claiming I put it out there because regardless of whether or not the miniature was faulty I found the incident unacceptable regardless, especially in light of the price. I have to say though GW fanboi's have hammered the final nail in the GW gaming coffin for me because the response of some to the issues with Finecast and anyone who doesn't like the stuff is farcical. Just for clarity I supported the GWs switch to resin:

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2011/05/fine-cast-or-to-rest-of-world-resin.html

The above article was written before the 'Gandalf incident' and hopefully shows I didn't have an agenda to rip on the stuff. I'm a huge fan of resin models as a painter.