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Barrel Barricade (3) preview

Are these resin or hardfoam (with resin masters shown)?

Oh I wondered where the conversion lab had gone...!

 Kroothawk wrote:
Are these resin or hardfoam (with resin masters shown)?

Same as trenches - cast in resin. They will be sold as set of 3.

Oh I wondered where the conversion lab had gone...!

Hehe. We will have some more coming this year too! I can't share the details yet but keep on checking us

Some new arrivals:


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Skeleton Heads (12)


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Atomic Fuel Barrel (5)


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Ammo Crate (6)

Hello, Dakka. As a preface to this post, I'd just like to make it clear that I wish no ill will on Basicks as a company. This is, after all the season of good will and cheer. However, I think it is my job as a customer to inform other potential customers of the product that I have received from Basicks so that they can make a judgment for themselves as to whether they want to order from them. This is by no means the end-all and be-all of experiences with this company, but it is one of the only I have seen online and I hope it can give someone some perspective. So with that said, take this as you will, but know that I am a gamer who's been modelling resin, plastic, and metal models for almost ten years, so I do have some experience.

Now that that little disclaimer is out of the way, I'll let you know, first, what it was I bought from Basicks. Taking advantage of the 40% off sale from Black Friday, I ordered five sets of each of the mechanical wings (closed and opened). The site was easy to navigate and tracking was quickly sent out. I cannot fault them for their flawless and superb job at shipping and providing information for their customers, so kudos to them for that. I was incredible excited to receive these wings as I had been eyeing them since before Basicks was a thing. Therefore, it came as a horrid disappointment when I ripped open the box for the first time. I don't mean to be cruel, mean, or slanderous, but these conversion bits had, bar-none, the worst quality control I have ever seen in my life.



Here, we see the closed wings (except the backpacks). The first thing I noticed, and I'm sure you did too, was the heavy, saran wrap-style flash all over the models. This flash is unlike anything I have ever seen before. It is very tough and is molded to the surfaces of the tiniest of details. An attempt to remove all the flashing from just one of the wings ended up taking almost twenty minutes and I can still pick up on some bits here and there; not to mention I clipped some details just trying to get the flash off because it was in such finicky places. I think the flashing might come from the type of resin they are using, which is very cheap feeling and flimsy. The next thing I noticed was that the bottom most feathers were cast so poor to the point of being non-existent. Compare them to this picture from the Basicks website , which shows the feathers to be crisp and sharply detailed, and you'll see the bottom feathers of these are lumpy and/or not there.



Next, we come to the open wings. While the above picture is testament to the worst out of the bunch, it is not the only. The other baddest of the bad can be seen here, here, and here. But believe me, they are all pretty bad. I think it goes without explaining what is wrong with these wings. Giant hunks of irreparable, excess resin, edges of feathers completely sheered off, resin bubbles on thin, flat surfaces, the works. My problem isn't that it's one wing set. Not even two. It's almost all of them. Only three out of the ten different sets of wings are usable (though they would still require a great deal of flash removal and GS filling to make them look up-to-par).

So, after getting over my frustration at this turn of events, I email Basicks' customer service hoping for a resolution to the problem. I sent all the pictures I posted here as proof that my distress was real. I don't want to speak for all gamers, but I think the vast majority of us would agree that a product of that quality is not worth the $45 (after the 40% discount) I payed for them. I figured that they would agree that they messed up. Maybe, seeing how the holidays were coming up, they had an honest screw-up. Maybe they had a lot of orders on Black Friday and some models slipped past their quality control. I was devastated to find that it would appear not to be the case. I will not post the email 'conversation' for the sake of respect and privacy for both of us, but I will say that the response I got was not only non-constructive, but insulting of my intelligence. The response was essentially "small deformations in resin are natural, if you don't like it, please return it." After viewing their return policy and seeing that they require the consumer to pay for shipping back (paying back requires the item to be faulty or damaged), I was fairly confused. I found this concerning, as it did not seem that they considered this a faulty product, so I responded with a simple question of whether I would be getting replacements for these items and if they were going to pay back my shipping costs if I returned them. To which I received no response. I have received no response since then.

And so, the wings sit on my desk in all their poorly cast non-glory as I ponder what to do with them. I hope this review of my experience with Basicks has been enlightening for some. I care a great deal about small businesses; especially the ones that provide this community with fantastic conversion bits for their armies. However, I refuse to remain silent when a company is willing to charge such prices and then put out a product of such low quality. In summary, seven out of ten of these wing sets were cast so poorly as to be unusable. The majority, rather than the minority, were bad. The company professes that these deformations are natural to their product. If that is the case, I will not be ordering from Basicks ever again. I encourage you all, if you have the courage and want to take the risk, to feel free to order from Basicks. However, know that their customer service seems to have a very backwards view on what is a "small resin deformation" and a crappy cast.

Thank you all for reading,

Darth Bob

Thanks for the post Darth Bob. I've been curious about this company, and had considered ordering from them.
Based on how you were treated though, I don't see that happening. Any small or large company that pulls that
kind of crap needs to be made public to protect us all. I can't speak for everyone else on Dakka, but if they can't
take care of a simple, straight forward problem as obvious as that, they don't deserve my hard earned money. They
should take a page from Victoria Lamb, Anvil Industry or Zinge. They have quality product, quality control, excellent
customer service and aren't unreachable.
Best of luck DB. To Basicks, poor form.

maybe i have just been unlucky, Darth Bob, but those pics look like any other piece of resin casts i've recieved from other companies...
i'm not seeing big bubbles, or missing details...
the flimsy resin sheet around the wings is common to resin casting and crumbles away easy...
the thicker bit at the bottom should cut away clean from the straight edges...
i do see rough spots on the bottom "feather of the two middle closed wings, but they look easy to fix on that flat surface...
wings 1 and 4 look great...

maybe the photos aren't showing the problem, but all i can say is that if Finecast looked this good, i'd be all over it...
these look on par with a lot of Forgeworld pieces...
too bad everyone in the industry can't be like the beautiful resin casts that McVey Studios send out...
they come out the package damn near ready to paint...

sorry for your bad experience, but i'm not seeing the problem...

cheers
jah

 Darth Bob wrote:
Hello, Dakka. As a preface to this post, I'd just like to make it clear that I wish no ill will on Basicks as a company. This is, after all the season of good will and cheer. However, I think it is my job as a customer to inform other potential customers of the product that I have received from Basicks so that they can make a judgment for themselves as to whether they want to order from them. This is by no means the end-all and be-all of experiences with this company, but it is one of the only I have seen online and I hope it can give someone some perspective. So with that said, take this as you will, but know that I am a gamer who's been modelling resin, plastic, and metal models for almost ten years, so I do have some experience.

Now that that little disclaimer is out of the way, I'll let you know, first, what it was I bought from Basicks. Taking advantage of the 40% off sale from Black Friday, I ordered five sets of each of the mechanical wings (closed and opened). The site was easy to navigate and tracking was quickly sent out. I cannot fault them for their flawless and superb job at shipping and providing information for their customers, so kudos to them for that. I was incredible excited to receive these wings as I had been eyeing them since before Basicks was a thing. Therefore, it came as a horrid disappointment when I ripped open the box for the first time. I don't mean to be cruel, mean, or slanderous, but these conversion bits had, bar-none, the worst quality control I have ever seen in my life. ...

Thank you all for reading,

Darth Bob

Lordy, that's mind boggling. I've a fair number of KD resins and an early Ultraforge, and I've never seen anything that looked like that. That's simply ghastly, and represents a quality level that would certainly disqualify it from any of my purchases.

jah-joshua wrote: but i'm not seeing the problem...

Darth Bob wrote:The first thing I noticed, and I'm sure you did too, was the heavy, saran wrap-style flash all over the models. This flash is unlike anything I have ever seen before. It is very tough and is molded to the surfaces of the tiniest of details. An attempt to remove all the flashing from just one of the wings ended up taking almost twenty minutes and I can still pick up on some bits here and there; not to mention I clipped some details just trying to get the flash off because it was in such finicky places. I think the flashing might come from the type of resin they are using, which is very cheap feeling and flimsy.

Well, if the flash is as he says it is, that's be a huge prob. I know what you mean about the almost see through resin "halo" that can almost surround a model at times. It is usually weak enough to rub off with your fingers almost.
But that doesn't sound like what the OP ran into. The bigger problem, to me, is the response to the OP by the company, described by the OP. Granted I've only heard one side of the story, but it was thoughtful and well stated.
Not the rantings of someone who did get their butt kissed. I'd love it if the company would give us their side.

Maybe the pictures don't show what you are trying to explain to us, but I am not seeing a single deformation in the actual cast barring the significant amount of flash. Could you take a closer picture of the actual bubbles? From what I am seeing is that the casts remain far superior to the disaster that is Finecast.

I'm sorry if the pictures aren't clear to everyone so that you can see the problems with the cast. I tried to take quality photos but the only one I had available was an iPhone.

@jah-joshua The resin sheets you are seeing are not the crumbly kind you seem to be referring to. As for the thicker bit, I'm sorry but I will have to disagree with your assessment. This is a large chunk of resin molded into the wing. It would require cutting it off, and then reshaping with green stuff or a similar putty. I firmly believe that it should not be the job of the customer to have to reshape and reform casting errors. That is, to me, where quality control comes into play. I respect that you occasionally need to touch up models. But not seven out of ten.

@Commander Cain As above, I unfortunately can't take much closer pictures because of the limitations of my phone's camera. I suppose I can point out the particulars in each picture.

In this picture, the bottom of the feathers has completely sheered off. Where the cascading points should be, there is instead a smooth, rounded edge at the bottom. Almost as if they were sanded off. In this picture, you notice the giant chunk of resin at the bottom. As I stated above, it would require significant sanding, cutting, and reshaping to reform the detail on this wing. This photo shows something similar the the top photo. Additionally, on the mechanical arm of the wing, if you look closely, you can see there's lumps of resin in the detail of the pistons. This last one, the edges of the feathers are thinner and malformed, almost as if they were formed on a different "tier". I don't really know how to explain it.

Not arguing with either of you, and as I said, I don't believe this is the end all/be all of experiences with this company. Please take away what you will. I'm just giving my personal observations. I respect that both of your vantage points are limited to the pictures provided, but I do honestly believe that these models are simply bad cast.

fair enough, Bob, as you are the paying customer...
if you are not happy, it is the store's job to try and rectify the situation...
i run into a similair problem at my surf shop, with boards, repairs, and even waves...
the only thing i have control over is doing a good job on repairs, but i find myself sometimes being held responsible for people's lack of skill or the fickleness of Mother Nature...
even if things are out of my control, it is my responsibility to put out the fires to ensure happy customers, return business, and good reviews...

so, i see where you are coming from...
it's a shame really, 'cause those wings are cool...

cheers
jah

Better pics would be great... I had had my eye on ordering these too, but definitely wouldn't direct now. Do any other places sell these that would have a better return policy (Warstore)?

Again, I want to make it clear that I did not mean this post as a "Basicks sucks, don't order from them, their stuff sucks! They're an evil, evil company!" post. I simply wanted to express my displeasure with the product I received in a constructive manner by showing a community that I care about (Dakka) my personal experience. I don't want this to turn into a big dissertation about how these are better than Finecast or a bunch of bashing on the company. That's not what I want at all. Companies are always going to show the good stuff, but there's always going to be bad experiences even with the best of companies. I think it's important for those bad experiences to be shared with potential buyers so they are able to form an opinion based on both the good and the bad. Reviews are integral to my purchases and I almost always consult reviews before making a purchase. I would love to see Basicks turn around and say that they are willing to provide me, and indeed all unsatisfied customers, with a solution to help ease their dissatisfaction. I would love nothing more than to return these things and get a sparkling new set that doesn't have all these molding issues. I don't want to give this company a hard time but it's very disheartening to profess your concern to a company, only for them to respond with a "if you don't like it, return it" message.

I also want to mention that before I even made the order, I communicated with the representative here on the forum. It was he/she who let me know, by personal message no less, that they were having this sale. He (or she) took his/her time to see my message about loving the wings and pop me a personal message. I probably would have spent the extra 40% on the wings anyways (giving them more money), but they were kind enough to point me, an unaware potential buyer, of a way to get their stuff cheaper and save me money. That experience alone shows me that they care about their customers, so it came as a shock that the response from their customer service was so impersonal.

I want this company to take off more than anything because I think they put out some great looking stuff. I don't want to put dirt in their eye. I am simply giving a review of my experience; that experience happens to be negative. Just as one might give a movie a bad review, others might give it a good one. It's up to you to decide whether you want to side with the bad review and avoid the movie, or side with the good review and go see it. I honestly hope that my bad experience was just a fluke and that other people have positive experiences with this company. I don't want this to be a big, dramatic dissertation that lasts for eighteen pages, starts a flame war, has cat pictures, and then gets locked. I don't think anyone wants that. I'm not looking to incite the Dakka community to raise their pitchforks and torches. I'm posting a review to give people more perspective on this company. Nothing more and nothing less. If the company happens to look at my review and decide to try to repair what I personally believe needs fixing, so be it. If not, they've lost a customer, but just like every film director has his critics, he will always have those who shouts praise.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Darth Bob

What an unfortunate (but educational) post. I hope some satisfaction comes your way out of this.

 Darth Bob wrote:


@Commander Cain As above, I unfortunately can't take much closer pictures because of the limitations of my phone's camera. I suppose I can point out the particulars in each picture.

In this picture, the bottom of the feathers has completely sheered off. Where the cascading points should be, there is instead a smooth, rounded edge at the bottom. Almost as if they were sanded off. In this picture, you notice the giant chunk of resin at the bottom. As I stated above, it would require significant sanding, cutting, and reshaping to reform the detail on this wing. This photo shows something similar the the top photo. Additionally, on the mechanical arm of the wing, if you look closely, you can see there's lumps of resin in the detail of the pistons. This last one, the edges of the feathers are thinner and malformed, almost as if they were formed on a different "tier". I don't really know how to explain it.

Ah, thank you. I was searching for bubbles rather than casting defects. I would still call them all useable but that is hardly worthy of praise.

Have you received a reply yet? I find that to be the most disturbing thing as bad customer service can destroy a company no matter how good (or bad) they are.

Hello Darth Bob,
we are sincerely sorry that you got items that didn't satisfy you. It really seems that some of them would be needing more work and love than usual. As this is product cast by hand in resin, sometimes a little errors can happen. The resin flash was left intact to provide more protection for the wings during delivery.

On the other hand the chunks of resin were error of ours and we are really sorry that it happened. We will keep an eye on this and pay more attention to quality checks.

We hope that wings that we will send to you as an apology will satisfy your needs.

Sounds like Basicks is resolving the situation. Darth Bob, let us know when you get the replacement wings. I'd like to know I can trust the QC before I order (I've been planning on ordering the Basicks Troll).

 Basicks wrote:
Hello Darth Bob,
we are sincerely sorry that you got items that didn't satisfy you. It really seems that some of them would be needing more work and love than usual. As this is product cast by hand in resin, sometimes a little errors can happen. The resin flash was left intact to provide more protection for the wings during delivery.

On the other hand the chunks of resin were error of ours and we are really sorry that it happened. We will keep an eye on this and pay more attention to quality checks.

We hope that wings that we will send to you as an apology will satisfy your needs.

Thank you very much. This response was the kind of response I had been hoping for the first time, and I am relieved to see that I finally got it. You're obviously a company willing to provide a good service to the community while having the courtesy to ease the concerns of unhappy customers. I appreciate the gesture of sending me replacements, and I can't wait to get them.

I will post my new review when I have received my replacements.

Good to see they're getting replaced, I look forward to the updated review!

Awesome customer service it sounds like!
And I can't wait to hear the update on the new ones as well.

Good deal.

So, back at regular things


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Spooky Bases Ellipse 120mm (1)


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Barrel Baricades A (1)


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Barrel Baricades B (1)


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Barrel Baricades C (1)


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Barrel Baricades Set (3)

The Barrel Baricades Sets look nice, but they don't seem like they'd provide much cover. Any shots with figures to show the size better?

 bbb wrote:
The Barrel Baricades Sets look nice, but they don't seem like they'd provide much cover. Any shots with figures to show the size better?

Sorry it took so long. Hope this will help:

if you dont mind me asking what fig is that you used ?

The torso does look familiar...

I wanna know too. Could see myself making an Inquistor with those pieces...

--Chris
www.chrisvalera.com

Head - http://basicks.eu/shop/index.php?id_product=197&controller=product
Legs - http://basicks.eu/shop/index.php?id_product=220&controller=product
Torso - custom made, not in production