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Edit: The creator assured me this was not reflective of their standard of quality and I was offered a refund for this product, or an exchange with some smaller bases thrown in. I gave them away in the end rather than fuss around with the postage so cannot comment further.




Morning All,

I purchased some scenic bases recently, they arrived yesterday and i was appalled by the quality. I went with low end stuff and so was prepared to have slightly sloppy sculpting as they were to be obscured by snow.
I wasnt prepared for bases that are not level, these things will take hours to get sitting flat on the table, its obvious that the creator had a quick go at this from the marks on the bottom.

So my question is, do the big brands ie. scibor, secret weapon also suffer from this? I havent purchased resin bases before and if its a problem across the board i dont want to be unfair on the guy, however these things are going to take longer to clean up than it would have taken to make them myself.

Thanks

Where did you get the bases from? I've gotten many many bases from Secret Weapon and Dragonforge, and all were fantastic.

I have bought bases from Dragonforge, Secret Weapon, and Scibor. I can say i have never had this problem with any of the above.

The bases were from spectre scenics, at less than £1 a base the sculpting was about what i expected, its the base part that is the problem, check out the pics next to a standard gw base and judge for yourself.

I have dozens of resin bases from multiple companies over the years, almost every base has a machined bottom to make sure they are flat. Appears like they put them on a belt sander to reduce the base and make it flat after casting.

I would expect that level of effort required of any resin casting which is a 1-part mold which has an exposed side. the back always needs to be machined flat.

A few seconds on a belt sander would work out for these, but they should have done that for you. Those are unacceptable to me.

nkelsch wrote:
I have dozens of resin bases from multiple companies over the years, almost every base has a machined bottom to make sure they are flat. Appears like they put them on a belt sander to reduce the base and make it flat after casting.

I would expect that level of effort required of any resin casting which is a 1-part mold which has an exposed side. the back always needs to be machined flat.

Not sure how they managed to get that result - I've been casting my own bases for 10 years and have never had anything quite like that. A belt sander would square them up - but proper casting makes that unnecessary too.

Take a pretty standard open faced mold, pour in your resin so that there is a slight dome (the meniscus). Take a sheet of heavy plate glass - I use 1/2" though regular window glass will probably be heavy enough. Lay a sheet of wax paper on top of the glass and then lay the glass over the mold with the wax paper between the glass and the mold. The weight of the glass pushes the resin down and out of the mold. The glass provides a perfectly flat surface with which to form the second half of a mold. The wax paper keeps the resin from sticking to the glass as it cures. Once it cures, you can lift the glass and with the majority of base castings - the bases are stuck nicely to the wax paper. The result is a bit like the candy buttons you can buy in stores. When you need a base - just pop it off the sheet. Everything is ready to go - no irregular bottoms to be squared up.

Of course - it does mean that you need a square mold top to begin with. That is easy enough to to do though. Glue your master bases to a sheet of glass (again - plate glass is about the flattest thing that your average person will ever come into contact with). Build your mold box around the bases. Pour the rubber and let cure. The bottom of the mold in the box will be perfectly flat because of the plate glass and when combined with a plate glass sheet for the casting - produces perfectly flat bases.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:


Not sure how they managed to get that result - I've been casting my own bases for 10 years and have never had anything quite like that. A belt sander would square them up - but proper casting makes that unnecessary too.

So when you have a 1-sided mold with the detail is face down. You have like 5-6 of them in a single mold. If you OVERFILL the mold, then they don't come out individually, they basically all become 'bumps' on a flat piece of resin all connected.

If it is thin, it is just flash and you can remove it with a knife.

if it was overly full, the resit becomes thick, and then usually people snap the extra pieces off like peanut brittle. And that leaves that irregular edge around the base of the model.

Just looks like castings from an overfull mold. Not fit for sale IMHO. Just sloppy casting. Of course it can be salvaged, but you shouldn't have to. (and honestly, those bases don't look very good to me. Not a fan of the poor detailed corpses)