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 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The detail on some modern plastic kits is pretty impressive, equal to or better than FW vehicles.

Maybe on non-GW plastic kits, but those seem to be beyond GW's ability to create. If we compare GW plastics (what we would actually get if FW went all-plastic) to FW resin kits then resin has a clear advantage in detail.

It's hard to say what GW plastics are capable of vs FW because GW seem to intentionally make things chunky. I'm never sure if a GW model has chunky details because they are limited by the process or simply by choice.

Granted it's not always rosy with plastic kits. Tamiya kits have awesome detail but pay for it by having injection marks all over the place that have to be cleaned up, I still prefer it to resin though.

Resin parts seem to be warped almost as a matter of course, plastic parts are typically only warped if they fethed up the casting process or someone sat on the box and squashed the contents.

Tell that to my old (plastic) Tau army. Hammerhead railguns that were clearly warped, crisis suit backpacks that wouldn't fit together at all, crisis suit weapons that looked like they'd melted and re-formed, etc. Even when the parts aren't obviously defective GW plastic kits still have huge gaps and mold lines that are a pain to remove. I've often had to spend just as much time cleaning up plastic pieces as the average resin kit requires.

I'd chalk that one up to GW fething up the process or someone having sat on the sprues

I'd chalk that up to comparing 10+ year old models to present day alternatives

The only problems I've had are a few slightly bent chainaxes and a bend predator auto cannon. Straitened up pretty quick though. On the whole FW stuff has been fine for me

GW plastic has improved a lot since first edition, especially a lot of the newer kits, not the box sets though, they are not high quality sets, they are just basis starter sets to get someone wanting to play, and buy the better individual kits. I will say the tau are not one of them that have good figures or come out well in plastic. I don't know about the new kits, haven't gotten one yet as far as fire warriors go.

No matter what, plastic or resin, the thin and long parts will get warped. Not much you can do about that, unless they make it in multiple pieces that you have to assemble.

Anyone done a comparison of 30k FW against 30k GW? What is the thoughts and differences between the kits as far as warping and mould lines?

 godardc wrote:
I only ordered infantry and infantry upgrades kits for now, and I never had any problem.
This is why I thought only the big kits have this kind of problem.
Are the infantry models warped, sometimes ?

I've had problems with warped power swords and autocannon barrels. Dipping them in hot water, straightening them, then dipping them in ice water fixes the problem.

Had another lightning strike fighter arrive today.

No warping on any parts



Just missing 1 of the 2 tails fins lol.
Being sent out as we speak.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Pretty common yes.

Resin curing is a chemical reaction, and generates quite a bit of heat. The heating and subsequent cooling can produce warping.

Nothing hot water or a hair dryer doesn't sort, as a rule. The side pieces of the fire raptor and storm eagle are probably the worst, big enough to generate pretty severe warpage, not thick enough to resist it at all.

Most of the warping in resin is caused by pulling the pieces out of the mold too soon and not placing them on an appropriately shaped base until they set up/harden completely. It is especially critical in the case of thin flat panels. For the various road pieces that Armorcast produced, we built a set of very closely spaced shelves like this. Roads would always sit overnight before packaging to prevent warping.



T

 DarkKnights44 wrote:
GW plastic has improved a lot since first edition, especially a lot of the newer kits, not the box sets though, they are not high quality sets, they are just basis starter sets to get someone wanting to play, and buy the better individual kits. I will say the tau are not one of them that have good figures or come out well in plastic. I don't know about the new kits, haven't gotten one yet as far as fire warriors go.

No matter what, plastic or resin, the thin and long parts will get warped. Not much you can do about that, unless they make it in multiple pieces that you have to assemble.

Anyone done a comparison of 30k FW against 30k GW? What is the thoughts and differences between the kits as far as warping and mould lines?

Here you go: 30k backpack and legs compared between FW and GW on "identical-ish" mk4 parts.



On infantry, FW parts do great on major details (like a face) but have lots of trouble on fine minor details. Many parts which should be flat/square are convex, and insanely time consuming to fix (if it's even possible). Many things which should be round are a little wobbly, and many edges are just not perfect the way plastic parts are.

Incidentally, I disagree with you on the box sets. On almost all post 2009 kits (after CAD and the improved tooling), even the troop-level or snapfit models, the fit is nigh perfect. I'm hard pressed to think of even one plastic model made in the last 5 years that gives assembly problems -- every single model in Age of Sigmar starter went together like a dream, for example.

 DarkKnights44 wrote:
Yeah, I can't see plastic being that more expensive then resin, they just made the Calth figures out of plastics and they had resin versions already made and had been out for while before they made the plastics.

I would think if they made them from plastic they could make the runs for their items longer then they do now.

BaC was a citadel release, not fw, which was why it was plastic.

I think most people think fw is a lot more financially successful than it is in reality, they are a boutique element to the company that needs overheads to be as low as possible (whilst maintaining a quality product) to remain viable. They don't turn over a huge amount of stock, and the casting process takes around 20 mins (compared to twenty seconds for plastics). They'd close in a month if they tried to go plastic only.

On topic, I bought two of the same fw vehicle yesterday. One is perfect. The other is a nightmare of warpage, flash, and miscast details. Managed to sort most of it, but it was a complete contrast in qc.

 JamesY wrote:
On topic, I bought two of the same fw vehicle yesterday. One is perfect. The other is a nightmare of warpage, flash, and miscast details. Managed to sort most of it, but it was a complete contrast in qc.

This is one of the reasons I kind of despise working with large resin models from any company -- unlike metal and plastic models, I really have no idea what I'm getting into until I start. With plastic, if the back piece of the land raider doesn't quite fit, I know that every other land raider I build will have exactly the same problem. It is less of an issue to me with non-GW/FW models because they're typically not as large, and they're usually not vehicles where panels are expected to be at precise angles. I mean, it's much more acceptable to me to have a warped dragon torso than it is to have a concaved armor plating.

I can only see 1 default on the FW marine, even with the red dots^^

 Talys wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
On topic, I bought two of the same fw vehicle yesterday. One is perfect. The other is a nightmare of warpage, flash, and miscast details. Managed to sort most of it, but it was a complete contrast in qc.

This is one of the reasons I kind of despise working with large resin models from any company -- unlike metal and plastic models, I really have no idea what I'm getting into until I start. With plastic, if the back piece of the land raider doesn't quite fit, I know that every other land raider I build will have exactly the same problem. It is less of an issue to me with non-GW/FW models because they're typically not as large, and they're usually not vehicles where panels are expected to be at precise angles. I mean, it's much more acceptable to me to have a warped dragon torso than it is to have a concaved armor plating.

Indeed. It's the only reason I haven't bought a sicaran, and why the idea of a titan has absolutely no appeal.

 JamesY wrote:

 Talys wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
On topic, I bought two of the same fw vehicle yesterday. One is perfect. The other is a nightmare of warpage, flash, and miscast details. Managed to sort most of it, but it was a complete contrast in qc.

This is one of the reasons I kind of despise working with large resin models from any company -- unlike metal and plastic models, I really have no idea what I'm getting into until I start. With plastic, if the back piece of the land raider doesn't quite fit, I know that every other land raider I build will have exactly the same problem. It is less of an issue to me with non-GW/FW models because they're typically not as large, and they're usually not vehicles where panels are expected to be at precise angles. I mean, it's much more acceptable to me to have a warped dragon torso than it is to have a concaved armor plating.

Indeed. It's the only reason I haven't bought a sicaran, and why the idea of a titan has absolutely no appeal.

Just from the mouth of someone who Owns 4 Sicaran (two of each type) and one of each of the Imperial Titans (save for the now discontinued Lucius Warhound)

The Sicaran tanks go together like a dream, simple easy and the only pieces on mine that were Warped were some but not all of the Autocanon barrels, and the Lascanon sponson barrels which I didn't use on two of them anyway as I went for bolters.

Titans on the other hand, all of the pieces are big and chunky enough that they don't come out Warped, and none of mine needed a whole lot of extra seam work either, in fact the only gap I had was on my warlord because -I- personally assembled it wrong and out of order but got it fixed simple enough anyway without gapfil.

I personally have had more issues getting Citadel Land Raiders and Rhino chassis vehicles to match up properly without loads of filing and gap filling.

I bought six vehicles yesterday, two of them were land raiders and two sicarians, they were just fine, in fact better, some of the best casting I have seen them do for a while to be honest.

I always used to stay away from their larger vehicle kits because I found them to be very hit or miss.
Recently I have seen an improvement in the consistency, not sure why but it seems that is definately the case.
I am returning much less than I was this time two years ago, that is for sure, maybe I am just getting lucky !

With resin its almost impossible to prevent some kind of warpage unfotunately.

@CMA I've seen a couple of sicarans with side panels, in fairness I've seen plenty more that where fine, but it put me off.

The titans are in honest more because I really couldn't be doing with the assembly. I really don't enjoy assembling models anymore, and those would drive me nuts.

 JamesY wrote:
@CMA I've seen a couple of sicarans with side panels, in fairness I've seen plenty more that where fine, but it put me off.

The titans are in honest more because I really couldn't be doing with the assembly. I really don't enjoy assembling models anymore, and those would drive me nuts.

I can't fault you there. It felt like an award worthy accomplishment when I finished assembling the Warhounds legs..so..many..Pistons...ugh.. and while I did have fun with it I am slightly apprehensive of diving into #2.

By contrast, with the exception of my durp up on the Warlord it was really no difficult to assemble than a Standard Land Raider. The biggest pain in the rear with all of them though is the Gate removal and cleaning.. I'd almost pay someone just to do that for me.

 Chapter Master Angelos wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
@CMA I've seen a couple of sicarans with side panels, in fairness I've seen plenty more that where fine, but it put me off.

The titans are in honest more because I really couldn't be doing with the assembly. I really don't enjoy assembling models anymore, and those would drive me nuts.

I can't fault you there. It felt like an award worthy accomplishment when I finished assembling the Warhounds legs..so..many..Pistons...ugh.. and while I did have fun with it I am slightly apprehensive of diving into #2.

By contrast, with the exception of my durp up on the Warlord it was really no difficult to assemble than a Standard Land Raider. The biggest pain in the rear with all of them though is the Gate removal and cleaning.. I'd almost pay someone just to do that for me.

That does seem to be a common complaint, and I don't think I've ever seen one that has been perfectly smoothed. I'm working on a zone mortalis set and the gates on the blast doors are a pain in the .

@CMA & JamesY -

On my Sicaran, the back of the two main side panels (where the resin feeds are) were horribly off; they required gobs of greenstuff to make symmetrical and square. Also, the back treads, like many Forgeworld tanks I have gotten, were atrocious. I probably spent 3 hours with putty and greenstuff just to make the back treads look reasonable. I know a lot of people would have just ignored it, but to me, the back of the vehicle is quite important, as it's what I'm looking at more often than not when gaming

Also, my Sicaran didn't go together quite like a dream. The bottom piece actually didn't fit at all as intended -- if you hold it upside down, you can see that the floor of the sicaran is closer to the ground on the back than the front by about 1.5mm -- which doesn't sound like much, but when you see a gap on one side that's much bigger than the gap on the other side... these things do not make me happy. Obviously, it's not visible on the model.

The gun barrels were slightly bent, but I always expect that.

Also: because Forgeworld tanks typically require things like clamps and elastics to hold them together in place while glue sets, it's not possible to paint them in as many pieces (typically, I will do just chassis, sponsons, turret). While this isn't a deal killer by any means, it can be much, much faster to put paint tanks in more subassemblies that I have confidence will fit afterwards, because it becomes more airbrush-friendly. For example, those vertical exhausts are a lot easier to airbrush a bit of soot on without getting paint onto anything else if you have just the piece with the exhaust. If you're doing 3-6+ tanks.. you can just rip through a dozen exhausts all at once.

I'm not complaining about FW tanks so much as I am describing that they're a different experience. Once in a while I get in the mood for fidgeting with the prep; it's just that usually, I prefer the painting part of it of the hobby.

@Talys that sounds more like my experience than the good fortune CMA has enjoyed. Last year I picked up the dkok demolisher, the chasis was warped by about 30 degrees from front to back. I didn't notice until I'd built the tracks otherwise I'd have exchanged it. Managed to get it to more like 10 degrees off, but it isn't straight and it bugs me every time I look at it, which isn't how I want to feel about a £50 tank.

Tayls, I thoroughly rate these things;

http://hlj.com/product/MDLT026/Sup

They are the only thing that made me pick up a fire raptor build commission

@kb_lock - those look great! I use quick-grip F-clamps, and sometimes various 90 degree vices and elastics. I must look for those elastic/clamp.. things... at the hobby shop!