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Brutii11 wrote:Can someone post up a picture of their finecast models with or without imperfections or bubbles?
There seems to be a lot of accusations about quality begin hurled around, but every finecast model I have brought so far has definitley been superior to it's metal original.

Put your money where your mouth is, in a manner of speaking.

thats actually a really good argument against Finecast.


Forge World suddenly is competitive with GW prices.


I'll bet sales of Early PA marks will soar.

A few comments on some of the other posts

Flash is actually a good sign that the mold was filled completely and there shouldn't be very many, or large, air bubbles

Flash is usually caused by not enough pressure being applied to the mold thus resin seeps into the cracks

My local gw has been really good about replacing bad models

I am sure this is true. They have no up front cost to buy the models because they are the company that makes them.
Independent games stores have to pay up front and returning items take time. As the saying goes time is money.

the cheapness of the material won't offset the cost of new molds.those things are probably running upwards of $10,000 each

ahh how to comment on this one and be polite at the same time. Silcone mold for a box of Plague marines can be made for less than $10. I am sure GW has to have multiple molds but I don't think it cost them $10k

GW also has to pay for the storage of their old metal molds. they can't sell them as that could allow people to copy their IP, so they either have to destroy them or store them. storage is better as they could need them for a rainy day.

Pewter molds are made of vulcanized rubber basiclly car tire material. Easly recyclable. As for storage cannot be enough for any impact on cost.

Did some research. Bubbles are created when the resin is mix and poured into the mold. The mold is then placed in a vacumn chamber and the chamber is decresed to as close to zero psi as possible. If you remember high school science class, decreasing the pressure cause the resin to literly boil making the air bubbles move to the top and ifthe mold is designed correctly these bubble should come out of vent holes in the top of the mold.

So 3 reasons for bubbles can be concluded

Poor mold design
To little vacumn
Not enough time in vacumn

These are all quality control issuse.

I bought a Varghulf this week. No bubbles, alittle bit of flash across the fur on the shoulder this left a slight line when I gave it the final drybrush. All in all satisfied with the quality. Put it beside my metal one and could not really see any marked improvement in detail. My freind actually picked the metel one out for better detail.

GW last week sent out thier new price list. I had some free time so I helped my buddy reprice the stock. All I have to say is I am glad I do not have to start a new army. Almost the whole 40K and Fantasy lines went up 10 to 20%. Codex $29 WOW

Jadenim wrote:I'd be a bit cautious about the whole "it's a cheaper material" thing, off the top of my head:

1) They have had to do some conversion work to the moulds / casting equipment, which will have to be recouped.

2) Most of the Finecast stuff comes on sprue by the sound of it, so they've had to completely repackage everything in new blisters. Ok in the long term, shouldn't be more expensive, but again you've got to recoup the initial outlay to do all that.

3) The most important point IMHO is that they've had to develop this new material. I imagine they've been through a fair few different recipes to find a material that is suitably strong, flexible, cheap, mass producable, non-toxic and casts well*. They've then had to go through all the statutory legal testing to prove that the material is non-toxic, fire retardant, etc, etc and suitable for consumer use, on top of which they must have done additional safety testing if they've gone out of their way to state that you don't need to wear protective masks, etc (unlike FW). That whole lot must have cost a tonne of money.

4) The logisitcs of doing the above to all metal miniatures simultaneously. I presume they had a reason why they didn't phase it in gradually, range by range, but it must have been a damn good one IMHO, because the approach they've taken is a hell of a lot of work.

* - I'm not going to get into the casting issues; partly because it's too flame worthy, but mainly because any process will have occasional problems. Which can all be sorted by proper quality control before you ship the things out the door.


EDIT - MOD HELP: Why is my flag suddenly showing as USA???

Here here.

My only grumble about finecast is it doesn''t have the weight of the metal models which made them feel like a more quality piece of kit. Everything else from detail to ease of use is so much nicer it's unbelieveable.

Have bought a fair bit myself and have had no problems yet although i have had the thin layer ascross it thing, which is so easily sorted it's not even worth mentioning.

IMHO the worst thing GW did was the PR on the whole thing i.e. we're releasing finecast at exactly the same time as our annual price increase. The resins have only gone up as much as the plastics so look at it as 2 seperate issues guys!