Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
A) What does it matter if we've cast anything ourselves? I don't need to be a cobbler to know if I've received a defective shoe.

It matters because doing your own casting might give you a better idea of what level of defects is realistic for the medium. It's nice to say "premium product, should be flawless" but in reality a premium resin product is just going to have fewer and less severe casting flaws, not zero.

B). Passable means different things for different prices. At FW prices, any kind of detail erasing flash is unacceptable.

We're literally talking about something where writing a forum post complaining about it takes longer than fixing the problem yourself. That's going way beyond "passable" and into demanding an absurdly unrealistic standard of perfection as a matter of principle.

You're just going to continue to ignore that it is in fact obscuring detail, eh? A good, strong, argument of course relies on misrepresenting material facts. Good on ya.

Weird flex, but ok. No, I've never cast resin. I've never brewed beer either but I'll send a pint back. I've never worked in a commercial restaurant, but I'll send food back.

Yeah, I'm with Peregrine on this - it's not that bad and in all honesty you could easily just snip it, as it's in a place you won't see anyway.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
You're just going to continue to ignore that it is in fact obscuring detail, eh?

You mean the lie that it's obscuring detail? I have the exact same model and the spot that resin blob is in has no detail under it. At most it just barely clips the edge of the belt holding the saddle on, in a spot that isn't visible when looking at the model from any normal angle. OP has spent far more time complaining to FW and whining on the forums about it than it would have taken to just fix the problem and move on.

The rider actually has two more blobs on it, it's difficult to take close up shots so I only posted the largest one.

I have at least 20 infantry bodies where the space between the gas mask and chest is filled with solid resin, normally its a thin film that is easily cut but in this case it ruins the collar, some buttons, and shoulder straps. Many with the front rim of their helmets chipped off, lasguns with the heat sink "ribs" misaligned or just not cast at all, generally weak/poorly defined details, the list goes on...

And to be fair, FW did send me some good replacement parts. Never got a response about the lasguns or grenade launchers though.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
You're just going to continue to ignore that it is in fact obscuring detail, eh?

You mean the lie that it's obscuring detail? I have the exact same model and the spot that resin blob is in has no detail under it. At most it just barely clips the edge of the belt holding the saddle on, in a spot that isn't visible when looking at the model from any normal angle. OP has spent far more time complaining to FW and whining on the forums about it than it would have taken to just fix the problem and move on.

Post a pic of yours.

I can deal with most of the quality issues. What really annoys me is that more often than not parts are missing or just wrong.

My Seraptek, a 240€ model, had three front leg mounts and one rear leg mount come with it. I fixed it myself because I didnt want to wait another month to assemble it but I was pretty angry.

Another Time I had a acanthrites kit which was literally missing like 15 parts. And this isnt a large Kit either. I really wonder what these "checked by xxxx" cards are for since noone seems to bother checking the kits.

The guns should be no problem, the Autoguns for the renegades were for me but nothing that you can't fix with a bit of carefull heat.



The right shoulder here, the one tht stands up a bit, was completly deformed, I wasted 3 hours and with swearing,etc i finally fixed it.
You can still see it if you know it but i'd say i saved it well.

FW said that the postal services were the ones making the problems, i say i do not care who it was but i paid premium so i demand premium quality.

To put it bluntly, you're demanding a level of perfection that even the cost of FW basic troops doesn't justify. If you'd paid £30 plus for a model, perhaps. But as is, you're going to have to do some cleanup work. That might involve trimming the odd blob of resin in less than vital spot, correcting the odd mold line, or punching through a tiny bit of resin overspill between two parts close together.

It should also be emphasised that these sorts of things are more common with older FW kits which weren't laid out as well as the newer ones.

In effect, you want something that's as high quality as the HIPS stuff, and that's fine. But resin is not the material to be buying stuff in if that's what you want. If you're going to insist on it, you need to accept that there is going to be the odd minor flaw that you may have to correct yourself.

Never had problem with replacements and i have had a few miscasts, I can see why they wont replace that as its not obscuring anything, I can see why people expect perfection because of the high price but unfortunately that is not the case.

I always expect that with resin I will have to do some work because thats always been the nature of it as far as I am concerned although FW could really handle the QA much better for sure, some of the things that make it out can be terribly miscast and missing parts.

I am sorry but people saying that for the $$ FW can't be expected to be perfect are off the map.

When recasters, with their own molds can sell cheaper and often BETTER resin without the mold slip and mold seperation and general failures of casting......

I know a lot of people who buy recast on a regular basis and they've never reported the kinds of crap we deal with from FW as well as the heat sensitivity of FW products.

There really is no excuse for the utter trash QC of FW.

I mean, when the Chinese can do better QC than the Brits. There is a problem.

Yodhrin wrote:I do wonder, have any of you guys who spout this "muh premium" stuff ever actually cast anything in resin yourselves?

Also, "passable" - lol. Again, it's ten seconds of work with clippers and blade to remove the wee blob from the sole of the foot, not mold slip or missing detail. Again, anyone who things this is beyond the pale shouldn't be buying resin models.

Yes, I actually did cast some stuff in resin (and even pewter too) but to be fair I was just helping a friend with some private sculpts he made and we didn't have the support of a million dollar business behind up. Over the years there have been numerous complaints about FW doing sloppy/quick work (or using moulds beyond their lifetime) just to save money. Many boutique companies deliver higher quality at lower prices. FW prices are at "display miniature" levels (or higher) so I would (if I were to buy from them) also expect exceptional quality from them. This might be persnickety for gaming miniatures in your opinion but not everybody buys FW for gaming.

If GW is the Porsche of the miniature industry then FW is akin to a Lamborghini (or something like that) and at that price point I except better. They have the resources, they have economies of scale, the have the high price point. Even if they had to go through more moulds they should be able to make a profit (they are also attached to GW). There are no excuses that can justify their quality issues to me. Those are tiny issues and you might be okay with it for your own reasons but all the factors mentioned above combine to a product where the price/quality ratio is not good enough for me.

Ketara wrote:In effect, you want something that's as high quality as the HIPS stuff, and that's fine. But resin is not the material to be buying stuff in if that's what you want. If you're going to insist on it, you need to accept that there is going to be the odd minor flaw that you may have to correct yourself.

I think people who are complaining about FW's price/quality ratio would be happy enough with FW providing the quality level of smaller companies (even if the FW prices are a bit higher). And FW does sell individual models for 30€ and those can also have similar issues. There's a reason why boutique display miniature companies tend to use resin instead of HIPS and it's not just cost/economies of scale but also the level of detail that resin allows on one piece (often due to undercuts). Of course FW is probably more popular and rush or cut corners when it comes to casting to push out more orders/hour and make more money but if you have so many points stacked in your favour then you should be able to have a higher quality/price ratio.

I just ordered a Tyranid Heirophant direct from forgeworld so I wouldn't have to gamble with a recast's quality.

I'm hoping their customer service helps any issues that arise

There is a reason tons of people don't pay for Forgeworld. Their quality is sub-par, while their prices are above-par....which is always a bad combination.

I've been around Forgeworld for around 15-20 years and it's always been extremely hit or miss. I would never consider paying a premium for that gamble. I've heard their customer service is decent, but that's a pale excuse for putting out a mediocre product.

That's akin to saying "buy this car, they'll totally fix it when it breaks down".

I love the fact that my comment alluding to xenophobia was deleted, but the comment that baselessly speaks ill of an entire nation was allowed to stay.

You guys are a certain kind of special.

Never had much of an issue with them.

significant Mold slips, chipped parts and missing parts all got replaced super quickly.

they QA is horrid though newer kits have less issues.

kreig is ancient so im not surprised their molds probably cause a lot of problems.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I love the fact that my comment alluding to xenophobia was deleted, but the comment that baselessly speaks ill of an entire nation was allowed to stay.

You guys are a certain kind of special.

That the Chinese mass produce vast quantities of low quality tat is well known? I'm not sure how something that's fact can be prejudice?

 Stevefamine wrote:
I just ordered a Tyranid Heirophant direct from forgeworld so I wouldn't have to gamble with a recast's quality.

I'm hoping their customer service helps any issues that arise

The gamble is with FW. Never seen a problem with recasts. In fact the quality tends to be better and the Resin used is superior. In fact every other game company uses better resins than GW. In fact no where in any industry world wide is the resins used by GW used. With good reason. They are terrible.

Modern resins can handle both large thin parts and large thick parts w/o warping. The cost of even the superior prototyping resins is not "significant'. I have always been completely floored by GW's resin choice. Its like they got some cheap deal in China to use a bad formula and just kept at it because.. why? The resin used in Fine Cast are similar in structure to the FW the difference being that the Failcast resins are an even more inferior grade. There is very little strength in FW resin, less in FineCast form (its the same resin type with even more corner cutting in Fine Cast).

Every commercially available resin I can find for industrial use is vastly superior to what GW uses. In fact. I could not find anyone selling a similar type of resin with properties found in Fine Cast and FW resins. No one sells it because no one in their right mind would use it.

Even worse Forge World Resin never actually fully cures (polymerizes). FW resin has very little strength in compression or expansion. This means that parts break easily and require excessive thickness if you want them to be robust when making large (and heavy) parts. For it's weight is is extremely weak being only beaten out in weakness by FineCast (same resin, formulated to be even more dilute and air filled.. yes air, cut open a finecast model and besides the large air pockets if you look at finecast under a microscope you realize its ridiculous).

Everyone in the gaming model industry uses superior resins. Part of FW's problem is it's terrible resin. It doesn't flow well and casts poorly. Modern resins can be found that have very low viscosity and have great mold fillout. A Polyurethane resin is very strong and can be used to make very thin casts if one wants in the right formulation, like classic model car and airplane thin.

I can talk because.... I've used resins in casting and many kinds too. Shrinkage to viscosity to strength. Hell they make resins that can be used for medium duty metal gears (don't handle harmonic vibration well but otherwise are quite strong). Hell there is even Lab Metal out there which is very strong. There are cast resin gears in a lot of day to day stuff in folks lives that they don't even realize are castings.

FW and GW must have vats of the crappy stuff they bought in bulk from some shady toxic chem dealer in China back in the mid 90s or something.

There is ZERO practical excuse for the FW miscasting and weak (stinky, noncuring) resins except cost cutting down to fraction of pennies because the average cost for the resin (a GOOD resin, a STRONG resin) for a model like say one of the non-super heavy tanks is about .01-.02 USD when purchased on an industrial scale. That's right the material to make that FW tank is pennies (or less).

Warped Resin parts simply are inexcusable today. Modern chemistry has offered us resins that pour well industrially and do not warp. However crap is crap and produces crap.

Yes I have some FW products. After much work and repair they are nice enough but not for the money and not for TODAY's MONEY.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I love the fact that my comment alluding to xenophobia was deleted, but the comment that baselessly speaks ill of an entire nation was allowed to stay.

You guys are a certain kind of special.

That the Chinese mass produce vast quantities of low quality tat is well known? I'm not sure how something that's fact can be prejudice?

Exactly. Truth is truth.

In truth the Chinese actually just mass produce things on such a scale that it baffles most folks. A US company orders 10k items, the Chinese manufacturer will make 500K of said item, of which maybe 8-12k pass QC. The rest are then sold on the secondary market to other companies who re-brand them as you work your way down the lot you get more and more out of spec. But hey, if it's cheap enough someone will buy it. Harbor Freight for example. From one perspective the Chinese method is quite ingenious. They took an order for 10K parts and the needed equipment and turned it into a sale of 300-400K, the rest being completely unusable in any form which are then sold as scrap somehow.

Of course that means you get a reputation for crap. But they don't care, there is always someone willing to buy crap. Such as the FW resin, that's crap, but we buy it. Heh.

Back several centuries ago when England had a trade deficit with China, prior to starting the global Drug Trade (and a war) to balance that trade deficit, the Brit's wanted GREEN tea, as in the color. The Chinese could not fathom WHY. But hey if they want green then green it is, so they would put arsenic in the tea which would turn it green. It is an alien way of thinking for most of us westerners but it is what it is.

Anyone who has ever dealt with international ordering from China and India understands the challenges when facing completely alien business mindsets and practices. In fact there is a great book written by a US Ambassador that details in flow charts the various thinking flows for various nations to help businessmen learn how and what to expect when negotiating with various nations. Calling "western" thinking a thing is also silly, the book details how there is no unified process even in Europe or the "West" and every people work their own way. I found the book very helpful when dealing with overseas localization companies.

Nations are different snowflakes. Get over it.

I get it. So long as you layer an extremely thin veneer of ambiguity over objectionable statements, they're fine.

Don't worry, I'm retreating to the Painting & Modelling forums from this point on.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I get it. So long as you layer an extremely thin veneer of ambiguity over objectionable statements, they're fine.

Don't worry, I'm retreating to the Painting & Modelling forums from this point on.

Watch out the heat is rising and the flakes are not sticking to the ground. Seriously, since when is objective fact or truth "objectionable". Holy hell batman, what world do we live in.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Yes, this is entirely your own fault for thinking something you paid a premium for might actually be passable.

If you can't tell, I don't think that. I think the opposite of that.

I would return it.

I do wonder, have any of you guys who spout this "muh premium" stuff ever actually cast anything in resin yourselves?

I sure have! In quantity, even. And I can tell you exactly what happened: molds have a finite amount of pulls before which they start deteriorating. You can extend that a bit with good model placement and using mold release, but it's the nature of the beast. In this specific case, the mold had deteriorated a bit, and a chunk of silicone came out with one of the model pulls. You've surely seen a tiny piece of pink or blue rubber in the crevice of one of your models; well, that's what it is.

By any definition this is a casting defect. It's possible that whatever FW QA (i'm being generous here) it went though, it was decided that such a small, easily rectified flaw wasn't a dealbreaker for the mold and continued to cast with it. Maybe they just didn't see it. In any event, I don't see a problem with it, but for the premium price that FW charges I think it's reasonable to demand a perfect model, even if I personally wouldn't - because much smaller shops are able to pretty consistently churn out better casts and/or perform better quality checks. Mad Robot Miniatures, Hasslefree, Secret Weapon, and so on would likely not have shipped this cast. And if we're being honest, I think we all know the average cast from FW actually looks substantially worse. Every cast I have ever personally bought from Forge World has definitely had bigger flaws, most of which I just fixed because I am more impatient than I am pedantic.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go give someone a brownie with a piece of dog poop atop it, and when they complain, ask them if they ever made brownies before, because maybe they aren't qualified to complain about flaws that are obvious to laypeople.

 Ketara wrote:
To put it bluntly, you're demanding a level of perfection that even the cost of FW basic troops doesn't justify. If you'd paid £30 plus for a model, perhaps.

it's weird you should pick that number, because that's about exactly what he DID pay.

It's a single model for $26, with shipping it's $37.82. Right now £30 = $38.87

 Irkjoe wrote:
So I'm curious, considering the price what is an acceptable level of quality for their stuff? At what point would you ask for a replacement?

I am making a distinction between what is acceptable, and what I personally would accept. At how much they charge as a premium, I would expect a mini that matches the master, or close to it. As noted previously, other vendors doing the same thing with less resources accomplish this every day, so this isn't a crazy, unattainable goal.

I myself would be willing to accept flaws that don't obscure detail (ie, any flaws on the bottom of a model, or that are hard to see), or require what I consider to be normal, acceptable resin repairs for a "normal" resin vendor (easily filled, non-detail-destroying air bubbles, sandling,easily fixed mold slip issues, and so on).

This isn't an objective metric because what might be a minor fix for me might be a major operation for you, and vice versa.

meatybtz wrote:
Never seen a problem with recasts.

Then you haven't been looking. I've seen plenty of recasts that were utter trash, far worse than anything I've got from FW.

meatybtz wrote:
I know a lot of people who buy recast on a regular basis and they've never reported the kinds of crap we deal with from FW as well as the heat sensitivity of FW products.

They are lying to you. Pretty much every single person, recaster or otherwise, who works in resin will have issues with heat sensitivity, mold slips, bubbles etc.

It just happens.

In terms of the resin blob - just looks like generic clean up work to me.
It's nothing out of the ordinary or excessively bad.

Bent parts - it's resin, this is common with about 99% of fine resin parts from any company.
If this is considered to be a returnable thing, you may never own a full resin army as long as you live.

I've had some faulty models I've returned in the past, but these were things like a deredo body where the mould had slipped by about 4mm, or a Trygon (going back a while) where it's ribs were a single smooth section with the indents filled in.



Resin will always have flash and bent parts, it's simply the nature of casting with it.
The only time I'd request a return is if either the model was distorted badly or had damage to it.


As for recast quality, there is a reason I'd rather pay double for the real thing.
The reason it's cheaper is due to low overhead costs and generally poor material and mould maintenance.
I've had a few recasts turn up in bulk army deals and you can pick them out from a few feet away.


Moral of the story is that resin requires work.
You can't expect to buy any resin miniature and just wash and assemble it.
There will always be clean up work required.

 Ouze wrote:
By any definition this is a casting defect. It's possible that whatever FW QA (i'm being generous here) it went though, it was decided that such a small, easily rectified flaw wasn't a dealbreaker for the mold and continued to cast with it. Maybe they just didn't see it. In any event, I don't see a problem with it, but for the premium price that FW charges I think it's reasonable to demand a perfect model, even if I personally wouldn't - because much smaller shops are able to pretty consistently churn out better casts and/or perform better quality checks. Mad Robot Miniatures, Hasslefree, Secret Weapon, and so on would likely not have shipped this cast. And if we're being honest, I think we all know the average cast from FW actually looks substantially worse. Every cast I have ever personally bought from Forge World has definitely had bigger flaws, most of which I just fixed because I am more impatient than I am pedantic.

I think a lot of people that only have experience with FW/GW resins don't really have a good understanding of what can be accomplished with quality resin molding. Take for instance Industria Mechanika, which is for all intents and purposes a garage kit manufacturer. They sell complex multimedia kits (that are mostly resin but also have lasercut wood, photo etch, and sometimes LEDs) that are based on original artwork from some pretty awesome artists. Their kits blow what FW has to offer away when it comes to quality and frankly, price-point. Of course, they're not gaming miniatures and are solely for display, but the point still stands—Forge World is definitely far behind the curve when it comes to what's possible with resin castings at an affordable price.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go give someone a brownie with a piece of dog poop atop it, and when they complain, ask them if they ever made brownies before, because maybe they aren't qualified to complain about flaws that are obvious to laypeople.

Exactly.

Jackal90 wrote:
In terms of the resin blob - just looks like generic clean up work to me.
It's nothing out of the ordinary or excessively bad.

Bent parts - it's resin, this is common with about 99% of fine resin parts from any company.
If this is considered to be a returnable thing, you may never own a full resin army as long as you live.

I've had some faulty models I've returned in the past, but these were things like a deredo body where the mould had slipped by about 4mm, or a Trygon (going back a while) where it's ribs were a single smooth section with the indents filled in.



Resin will always have flash and bent parts, it's simply the nature of casting with it.
The only time I'd request a return is if either the model was distorted badly or had damage to it.


As for recast quality, there is a reason I'd rather pay double for the real thing.
The reason it's cheaper is due to low overhead costs and generally poor material and mould maintenance.
I've had a few recasts turn up in bulk army deals and you can pick them out from a few feet away.


Moral of the story is that resin requires work.
You can't expect to buy any resin miniature and just wash and assemble it.
There will always be clean up work required.

Well I almost have the entire army and it cost over 2k USD. I'm familiar with resin, this is my second krieg army though the first was way back when they released and since then I've bought stuff from across their different ranges. First time the quality was this low and told it was to their required standard. Compare them to Privateer who make up for the bad quality in some small way by replacing anything just by filling out a little form.

There are some great recasts out there. I bought a brass scorpion from coolcast that was pretty much flawless and a guy from my old club even has a warlord. But I agree that it's better to buy legit because you would ideally have some guarantees in case the quality was poor...

 Irkjoe wrote:
I'm being too picky.

You are.

That little bit of resin is nothing. Totally par for the course, and FW was 100% correct in denying replacement.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Irkjoe wrote:
I'm being too picky.

You are.

That little bit of resin is nothing. Totally par for the course, and FW was 100% correct in denying replacement.

I beg to differ, as someone that has a whole army made from non FW resin also to FW resin the quality is remarably worse for FW stuff.
And whilest cleaning is to be expected, the ammount of stuff wrong with FW that i got delivered compared to the whole other army i got is 0% faults for over 70 miniatures vs 6 faults just on my renegade command squads weapons, not to mention the assult and icon pack that i got which was so unusuable that it isn't even funny.

Not going to weigh in on FW's decision. The flaws in the pics are obvious and stand out as things that need to be addressed.

Maybe it's personal preference, but the trouble I'm having is all these items would be easy for me to correct. I can see how someone might be annoyed the problem is there, but also understand the argument that these models are for experienced modellers.

Anyone saying recasts are superior to FW is being less than truthful. A friend of mine lost his recast Dark Angels army this winter, it got too cold in his basement and every single model cracked in multiple places. They can't even be glued back together, the cold warped each shard to the point where they don't fit together anymore.

Not sure if it matters that some people have had success with recasts, there is zero QA and you really have no clue what you are getting.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Not going to weigh in on FW's decision. The flaws in the pics are obvious and stand out as things that need to be addressed.

Maybe it's personal preference, but the trouble I'm having is all these items would be easy for me to correct. I can see how someone might be annoyed the problem is there, but also understand the argument that these models are for experienced modellers.

Anyone saying recasts are superior to FW is being less than truthful. A friend of mine lost his recast Dark Angels army this winter, it got too cold in his basement and every single model cracked in multiple places. They can't even be glued back together, the cold warped each shard to the point where they don't fit together anymore.

Not sure if it matters that some people have had success with recasts, there is zero QA and you really have no clue what you are getting.

Not only that but the resin itself can be dangerous coming from countries like china, recasts can be better on occasion but the vast majority I have seen over the last twenty years were terrible.

FW do have QA, I have bought it up in WW and they told me that they are casting on a much larger scale than other companies and therefor its harder to keep a check on it, sounded like a typical canned response to be honest, if you hire enough competent staff you can always keep these things in check I always assumed.