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 Kroothawk wrote:
I am a bit reluctant to praise a company for reaching the plastic quality of Airfix models of the 70s.

Having quite a bit of experience in putting together both '70s Airfix kits (and Revell etc) and GW kits, I can safely say that old Airfix kits are pretty terrible when compared to GW or any other post-1990 model kit manufacturer. They require loads of work to look good.

 mitch_rifle wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
Plastic mini's are the last thing of quality from GW. GW overall has worse quality than PP though since the Finecast fiasco.

Besides the initial disaster of release, finecast for the most part was really good, the resin was much better than metal, but to say that GW has worse quality OVERALL due to a small part of their range being fine-cast, compared to PP which almost their entire range suffers from poor quality, is quite frankly silly

Except that that is just not true, I can still find finecast models released today with missing detail and bubbles. And how is it superior to metal? Go tell that to a friend of mine who is one of the best painters that I have ever seen when he found his beautifully painted Dark Elder Incubi, that he had spend hundreds of hours on, had drooped and sagged to the ground from just being stored at room temperature! "Better than metal" my behind!

Also white knight much? You come here to defend finecast of all things by saying that its just a small part of GW's range, but are happy to berate PP in its entirety for their plastics that are an even smaller part of their's...

Yes, PP's plastics are pretty high maintenance to clean up and some of them are incredibly badly produced with flash and mold lines running straight through details on the miniatures. This is especially notorious on Cyriss models for some reason.

However, PP has acknowledged these problems and stated that they are trying to work on possible solutions to solve them.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Eggs wrote:
You get different kinds of plastic. Plastic glue only works on one type.

Right, which is why the industry uses the term "plastic" as jargon to identify the specific types of plastic that work with plastic glue. Everything else is called "restic" or [something else], since they feel a bit like "plastic" but don't satisfy the most important condition.

PP's non-metal minis, whatever you want to call the material, have none of the advantages of plastic or metal, except for being light and having (softly detailed, mold line-riddled) undercuts.

Does it? In twenty+ years of wargaming, I've never seen the industry call PVC plastic restic, or any other name other than PVC, plastic, or PVC plastic. The most important condition as to whether something is plastic, is not whether you can glue it with polystyrene cement. It is whether it is made of plastic or not.

 Eggs wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Eggs wrote:
You get different kinds of plastic. Plastic glue only works on one type.

Right, which is why the industry uses the term "plastic" as jargon to identify the specific types of plastic that work with plastic glue. Everything else is called "restic" or [something else], since they feel a bit like "plastic" but don't satisfy the most important condition.

PP's non-metal minis, whatever you want to call the material, have none of the advantages of plastic or metal, except for being light and having (softly detailed, mold line-riddled) undercuts.

Does it? In twenty+ years of wargaming, I've never seen the industry call PVC plastic restic, or any other name other than PVC, plastic, or PVC plastic. The most important condition as to whether something is plastic, is not whether you can glue it with polystyrene cement. It is whether it is made of plastic or not.

"Restic" is one of those portmanteau buzzwords that came along about the same time Finecast did. The old Warzone plastics were PVC IIRC. I wonder what they called what they were made of back in the 90's?

Backfire wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
I am a bit reluctant to praise a company for reaching the plastic quality of Airfix models of the 70s.

Having quite a bit of experience in putting together both '70s Airfix kits (and Revell etc) and GW kits, I can safely say that old Airfix kits are pretty terrible when compared to GW or any other post-1990 model kit manufacturer. They require loads of work to look good.

Ye, I agree. I don't know about 70's but mid 80's to mid 90's "Airfix" kits (I.E. all the model kits we built as kids that were all known as Airfix whatever the brand) were rubbish compared to GW kit's then and now. Stuff required allot of work to line up, loads of gaps and often allot of ill thought out casting that made them a nightmare to put together. They also often lacked detail. GW plastics, IMO, are still some of the best around. You pay through the nose for it, but they do know their stuff. They are not perfect, with some of the larger kits needing a little work to put together, but they are at least solid enough to put up with some pushing and pulling.

PP's are horrid. There metals are IMO ugly, but that is personal taste. They seem to be well detailed. I can't comment on the quality of them. But PVC plastics? PVC is for toys and plumbing, not wargames.

 AduroT wrote:
I used to excuse that by PP being a smaller company not able to afford the big fancy machines that GW uses, but then Malifaux started making plastic figs of GWs level. PP really needs to upgrade their plastic technology and stop outsourcing it to china

That's not really the problem though. They outsource their operation to China and that company does have the ability and technology (and the similar machines GW uses as well).

This is more an issue of the PVC itself. Specific materials have their good points and bad. PVC models can be made in fewer parts with more undercuts, so the parts have to pulled from the machine by hand when the plastic is still soft unlike polystyrene which is ejected from the tool using ejector pins. This means the models will warp more than polystyrene. PVC is also a much harder plastic so it's not as fluid as polystyrene so you have to have larger gates to fill the cavities and it's harder to clean of mold lines.

Another reason the quality of PP models is becoming lower is that the mold room has too much say in how the models are made. A lot of detail gets removed from the model because the moldmakers/casters say "It's too dificult". The bar for quality constantly keeps lowering because they keep asking for more and more to be removed so their job is made easier, instead of trying to find ways of making it work.

PP lowering levels of quality has more to do with the inexperience/incompetence their management than any other factor.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Right. The material is some kind of resin. It cannot be glued with the normal plastic glue.

Wrong. Its PVC. Stop calling it resin or restic. PVC is a single component plastic sold in pellet form which is heated until it becomes fluid to fill the cavities. Resins are multiple component plastics that need to be mixed and have a "cure time" before setting.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
The fact is that PP, a company that's AFAIK much bigger than Wyrd, is producing subpar work with a terrible material. It's really frustrating - PP metal kits are lovely. It would be nothing but a good thing if PP switched to hard plastic kits

Again, it's more an issue of PP poor management than anything else. PP are also looking into polystyrene kits. At Lock & Load both Ed and Ben (one of the sculptors) said the Cyriss Battle Engine was going to be a traditional polystyrene kit (Ben also joked that it looked like a giant "butt-plug").

 Cyporiean wrote:
Dreamforge's mechs are pretty close in quality and features to some of Bandai's offerings, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few ex-Bandai employees at WGF.

I just got done painting one of these for a commission. It's a nice model but when you look at it closely it has some flaws. There are "tool marks" all over that thing. Almost as bad as cleaning a 3D print's build lines.

PhantomViper wrote:

 mitch_rifle wrote:
Yes, PP's plastics are pretty high maintenance to clean up and some of them are incredibly badly produced with flash and mold lines running straight through details on the miniatures. This is especially notorious on Cyriss models for some reason.

However, PP has acknowledged these problems and stated that they are trying to work on possible solutions to solve them.

Cyriss was rushed into production because they wanted to have them for Lock & Load. I got to see the test castings from China for the Cyriss models and they looked just as horrible then. Since the Cryx plastics still have the same poor quality issues and it's been a few years since their release I wouldn't count on any changes to the Cyriss models anytime soon.

I'm indifferent to PP's plastic kits. I don't really buy them now, but I wouldn't say I regret purchasing the ones I did. They take more work in terms of both mould line removal and hot water treatment for straightening pieces, but the end result is fine.

Every time I work on a styrene plastic kit though, I love the experience. It doesn't feel like I'm fighting with the material. That said, there's no way I'm going to be buying any more of these type of kits from GW as I think their games are terrible and prices are bad. And a lot of the designs are really terrible and cartoony. I'm loving the huge variety of styrene miniature kits from Perry, Plastic Soldier Compandy, Wyrd, WGF, DreamForge, Warlord, FireForge, Victrix and others to ever go back to GW.

At this point I still play PP's games because they are good in terms of game play, but haven't purchased a miniature in close to a year. I don't play GW's games and haven't bought their stuff in event longer. I use my existing collection with other rules.

A third plastic that might be relevent to the conversation is the Reaper Bones stuff. It's also vinyl based, but I don't think it's PVC. It's flexible, but that has yet to be an issue for me and mould lines can be removed with a file without any trouble. The price is great and they paint up great. I've started making some units for Warmachine/Hordes out of these figures as well.

When PP first revealed the PVC plastic material, I was excited for the possibilities of undercuts on plastic. As time went by I realized how little care went into the molds and how poorly the mold lines were placed. I am not a fan in general but I have seen a few kits that were quite nice. The legion warspears went together well with quick cleanup and the mold like placement on the second wave of warjack kits was much better. It is a shame that all reversed for the convergence release.

I still believe the material has potential, but the factories making the minis seem to not be used to casting for mold line placement and most kits seem to fall short. PP either needs to send experts over to China to help cut the molds or they need to find a new factory with miniatures expertise. The current state of affairs has customers paying for the learning curve of the factory and buying low-quality kits.

All of this plastic snobbery is laughable. It wasn't long ago that GW pushed plastic minis to the mainstream in the first place and I'm sure they had people saying things like "plastic is for children's' toys" in stores then. I've seen people rally against metal models as well in the last few years. Since the finecast disaster some people even believe resin is inferior. Styrene plastic is NOT the only material capable of producing a quality mini.

 Dais wrote:
PP either needs to send experts over to China to help cut the molds or they need to find a new factory with miniatures expertise. The current state of affairs has customers paying for the learning curve of the factory and buying low-quality kits.

PP doesn't have any "experts". No one at PP has any "hand on" experience with plastics. What information they do know they get from hearsay or the factory in China. One of the sculptors has a "little" bit of info on plastics, but that's also hearsay information, not "hands on". The only guy they had that did have actual "hands on" experience with plastics doesn't work for them anymore.

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:

 Dais wrote:
PP either needs to send experts over to China to help cut the molds or they need to find a new factory with miniatures expertise. The current state of affairs has customers paying for the learning curve of the factory and buying low-quality kits.

PP doesn't have any "experts". No one at PP has any "hand on" experience with plastics. What information they do know they get from hearsay or the factory in China. One of the sculptors has a "little" bit of info on plastics, but that's also hearsay information, not "hands on". The only guy they had that did have actual "hands on" experience with plastics doesn't work for them anymore.

Sounds like inside information. An expert in this field should be mandatory. Look at the poor Cyriss model line.

So far my own experience with PP plastic has been the Hordes 2 player battle box.

I am underwhelmed.

It's not enough to sour me on the game, but the flash is really excessive and mold lines suck. Also the packaging is terrible. A set of 5 guys are just dumped in a bag in pieces with no directions on how they are supposed to go together. I spent a good 2 hours cleaning them and they still aren't perfect.

Games Workshop plastics are much better IMO.

Games workshops designs are better, IMO (though, crucially, I recognize this as a subjective view). They are less cartoony (though, again, that isn't to say they aren't cartoony at all - they are). And some of their newer kits make me die a bit inside (Thunderwolf Cav - the fluff was bad enough..).

My experience with PP plastics has been a resounding meh. They're fragile, still rather monopose, and hard to clean.

So, can any of our experienced chemical engineers please recommend a solvent that will work with my Mantic PVC models the way plastic styrene glue works with GW plastic? Is there any tube-sized option that would be convenient to use for modelling?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, can any of our experienced chemical engineers please recommend a solvent that will work with my Mantic PVC models the way plastic styrene glue works with GW plastic? Is there any tube-sized option that would be convenient to use for modelling?

Missed all the posts about PVC cement then...?

Only bought one set from PP and personally I really think GW product was better quality. Im sticking with my 40k orks but I had to give PP a try...

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, can any of our experienced chemical engineers please recommend a solvent that will work with my Mantic PVC models the way plastic styrene glue works with GW plastic? Is there any tube-sized option that would be convenient to use for modelling?

Yes. It's called... PVC cement. Unlikely to get it in tubes, as it's usually used by plumbers to weld PVC pipe together, but the tubs often have a built in brush applicator.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 mechanicalhorizon wrote:

 Dais wrote:
PP either needs to send experts over to China to help cut the molds or they need to find a new factory with miniatures expertise. The current state of affairs has customers paying for the learning curve of the factory and buying low-quality kits.

PP doesn't have any "experts". No one at PP has any "hand on" experience with plastics. What information they do know they get from hearsay or the factory in China. One of the sculptors has a "little" bit of info on plastics, but that's also hearsay information, not "hands on". The only guy they had that did have actual "hands on" experience with plastics doesn't work for them anymore.

Sounds like inside information. An expert in this field should be mandatory. Look at the poor Cyriss model line.

Mechnicalhorizon did work in the casting departments for both GW & PP so he would know. (he's also done sculpting for both in addition to Forge World)

I've heard similar statements about the plastics & pvc from other PP employees, all their experience is from outside the company.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, can any of our experienced chemical engineers please recommend a solvent that will work with my Mantic PVC models the way plastic styrene glue works with GW plastic? Is there any tube-sized option that would be convenient to use for modelling?

Missed all the posts about PVC cement then...?

The only one I saw was a tub-sized bottle for plumbers. Is there a tube or not?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
So, can any of our experienced chemical engineers please recommend a solvent that will work with my Mantic PVC models the way plastic styrene glue works with GW plastic? Is there any tube-sized option that would be convenient to use for modelling?

Missed all the posts about PVC cement then...?

The only one I saw was a tub-sized bottle for plumbers. Is there a tube or not?

I have transferred it to bottle containers for easier application. Just like putting GW paint in dropper bottles. This wasn't for modeling though and was for piping applications.

You are probably looking at something more viscous. Haven't used it, but might want to try Weld-On #2007. Most viscous of PVC glues and does fuse the parts together.
http://www.eplastics.com/Plastic/PVC-Vinyl-Glue/WELD-ON-PLASTIC-ADHESIVE-GLUE-IPS-2007-PINT

Thanks! That link is very helpful. Now, I am eyeing my pile of restic crap with a bit more interest...

Now if only there was some of that what could work on Forge World's resin. :/

I had thought about starting warmachine until I saw the models, they are not my taste of sculpt, the actual model my friend had quite a few misfit cavities that needed green stuff work= to GW 5th edition WHFB or older models. I'll stick with GW for models as they're still the best in plastics.

It is worth noting that the plastic used by PP is apparently almost exactly the same stuff used for Mantic's "restic" or resin plastic material.

Some sort of PVC formulation. Not as good as a nice sprue in any way.

Harder to clean up, harder to glue, sometimes warps, generally more expensive.

I think PP would do very well out of making actual sprues for their miniatures.

 scarletsquig wrote:

I think PP would do very well out of making actual sprues for their miniatures.

They DO have actual sprues, they're simply clipped off before packaging.

 scarletsquig wrote:
It is worth noting that the plastic used by PP is apparently almost exactly the same stuff used for Mantic's "restic" or resin plastic material.

Some sort of PVC formulation. Not as good as a nice sprue in any way.

Harder to clean up, harder to glue, sometimes warps, generally more expensive.

And both of those are the same sort as Reaper uses for Bones. And just barely removed from the type of plastic used to make polymer clays like FIMO and Sculpey. All of them glue up fine using PVC cement.

PVC, like most plastics can be formulated dozens of different ways, from soft and flexible to rather rigid. They can be done very well, Privateer though is relying on a rather hands off method for creating their plastics. Assuming the factory has the experts, they let them make determinations which really should be finalized by the designers as opposed to technicians.

I think PP's individual boxes are hit or miss. I helped a local player assemble his two player starter and it was great. Then he bought a plastic menoth heavy kit and it had way more flash and required the hot water treatment on the legs and weapons.

I recently picked up the Retribution of Scyrah heavy myrmidon kit, was pretty annoyed that it's made from PVC rather than polystyrene, I wasn't too disappointed by the lack of posability though, I attribute that to being spoilt by GW's better kits.

Still, what would possess someone to make miniatures out of PVC, especially when polystyrene is available, which has properties much more desirable for the purpose?

 Krellnus wrote:
I
Still, what would possess someone to make miniatures out of PVC, especially when polystyrene is available, which has properties much more desirable for the purpose?

If everything went perfect with the design and casting, it would not be a bad medium at all. The stuff is tough, light, and allows undercuts. From a technical perspective that set of attributes is a dream. Glue isn't a big problem since superglue holds so strong you can't pull the plugs out of their sockets. The problems of horrible mold lines and bent pieces spoil it. And boy, do the mold lines spoil it on some kits.

 Dais wrote:

 Krellnus wrote:
I
Still, what would possess someone to make miniatures out of PVC, especially when polystyrene is available, which has properties much more desirable for the purpose?

If everything went perfect with the design and casting, it would not be a bad medium at all. The stuff is tough, light, and allows undercuts. From a technical perspective that set of attributes is a dream. Glue isn't a big problem since superglue holds so strong you can't pull the plugs out of their sockets. The problems of horrible mold lines and bent pieces spoil it. And boy, do the mold lines spoil it on some kits.

I dunno, polystyrene is just way easier to work with and holds detail better (relative to PVC) and has a better room for error, not to say that errors don't occur ofc, but honestly, if I have to superglue something together, I'd prefer it to be resin since it both holds detail better and allows undercuts.

If I were to guess though, since PVC shouldn't warp normally, I would say the guys actually making the kit, pull it out of the mould way before its cooled down, which dramatically increases the chance of warping.

Didn't care for the mold line placement but I didn't have any trouble gluing the model's together. I just used CA glue.