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Has GW ever said why they still don't have concave/ holes the barrels by now? It seems like originally it was a carry over from the lack of ability from pewter. Now it almost seems like a weird tradition considering they can have the holes in the gas expulsion side holes of a bolter.

Mold limits, most likely. You can't have undercuts in a plastic mold (unlike resin/metal casting it's a solid metal mold, not a flexible rubber mold that can bend to release a part) and guns are often molded as a single piece. So the hollow barrel would involve undercuts, while the side holes on a bolter do not. You could solve this problem by casting the weapon in two halves, and weapons that are done this way often do have hollow barrels, but on something like a tactical squad this means having a much higher part count and more assembly gaps to fix.

If they ever made barrel holes, they would loose sales on the overpriced hand drill you can get for cheap at your local hardware store.

Would that hold true for a if they just divoted the barrel rather than similar to a full drilling?

The baneblade heavy bolters have them. It requires more tooling and is more expensive. What happens is another part of the mold is pushed in from a different angle, in this case metal cylinders before lastic is injected. Once the plastic is formed the part is then pulled back mechanically allowing the mold to be released.

Hatachi wrote:
Would that hold true for a if they just divoted the barrel rather than similar to a full drilling?

Yes. You can not have ANY undercut with the metal molds for plastic kits. Any undercut shallow enough to work would be too shallow to matter, and at best would be a guide for where to put the drill when drilling out the barrels yourself.

 Peregrine wrote:


Yes. You can not have ANY undercut with the metal molds for plastic kits. Any undercut shallow enough to work would be too shallow to matter, and at best would be a guide for where to put the drill when drilling out the barrels yourself.

That would actually be pretty nice...

XV9 Hazard suits from FW come with their weapons barrels' hole'd

 Vector Strike wrote:
XV9 Hazard suits from FW come with their weapons barrels' hole'd

Those are resin, though.

My ten dollar Tamiya M4 Sherman tank kit has a barrel with a depth of about 1/4". Barrel size is comparable to a heavy bolter or plasma gun I'd say. Smaller than a missile launcher. Clearly not impossible to do.

There's a technology called sliding core molds, where there's more than two pieces to the mold that slide into place and slide back out after the plastic is injected. It's actually a bit more complicated than that, but if you like mechanical gifs, that's a heck of a fun thing to Google (as usual, turn safe search on; I have no idea what else you might get).

Maelstrom's Edge uses this, and it's NICE.

Here's a simple example:
http://gph.is/2dmzkYX

I'm sure it could be done, but it'd proably make the minis even more expensive

 Lorek wrote:
There's a technology called sliding core molds, where there's more than two pieces to the mold that slide into place and slide back out after the plastic is injected. It's actually a bit more complicated than that, but if you like mechanical gifs, that's a heck of a fun thing to Google (as usual, turn safe search on; I have no idea what else you might get).

Maelstrom's Edge uses this, and it's NICE.

Here's a simple example:
http://gph.is/2dmzkYX

So in order to get barrel holes, they would need little pins that could be inserted into the mold. Huh. Neat. That would limit the arrangement of the parts on a mold (all barrels facing out), but I guess it's doable.

They could just make the end of the barrel separate, so you glue it on to the end, then it would just be a part of the sprue, lying sideways.

There are clearly ways of doing this, gw likely isn't for ease.

 Purifier wrote:
They could just make the end of the barrel separate, so you glue it on to the end, then it would just be a part of the sprue, lying sideways.

Which would basically be same as 2 part pieces with same drawback: More assembly time.

 Purifier wrote:
They could just make the end of the barrel separate, so you glue it on to the end, then it would just be a part of the sprue, lying sideways.

There are clearly ways of doing this, gw likely isn't for ease.

But why? The process allows for it to be all one piece without waste. Other than the human waste, that is.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
They could just make the end of the barrel separate, so you glue it on to the end, then it would just be a part of the sprue, lying sideways.

There are clearly ways of doing this, gw likely isn't for ease.

But why? The process allows for it to be all one piece without waste. Other than the human waste, that is.

I was suggesting other ways since they clearly aren't doing it with the process that they have for whatever reason that we are not privy to. I'm just saying that there are several ways to do it, and they're choosing not to. I'm not trying to convince you this way is better. I'm struggling to understand what it is you're questioning.

 Purifier wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
They could just make the end of the barrel separate, so you glue it on to the end, then it would just be a part of the sprue, lying sideways.

There are clearly ways of doing this, gw likely isn't for ease.

But why? The process allows for it to be all one piece without waste. Other than the human waste, that is.

I was suggesting other ways since they clearly aren't doing it with the process that they have for whatever reason that we are not privy to. I'm just saying that there are several ways to do it, and they're choosing not to. I'm not trying to convince you this way is better. I'm struggling to understand what it is you're questioning.

Well your suggestion is basically 2 part casting. While it results in that it also results in more pieces to cut and glue. That's less userfriendly for effect not all are even interested. For many models are already PITA to assemble compared to benefit it provides.

tneva82 wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
They could just make the end of the barrel separate, so you glue it on to the end, then it would just be a part of the sprue, lying sideways.

Which would basically be same as 2 part pieces with same drawback: More assembly time.

If they gave a single toss with the keyword Fly about that, they wouldn't have made skitarii chicken riders out of 800 parts each.

 Purifier wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
They could just make the end of the barrel separate, so you glue it on to the end, then it would just be a part of the sprue, lying sideways.

There are clearly ways of doing this, gw likely isn't for ease.

But why? The process allows for it to be all one piece without waste. Other than the human waste, that is.

I was suggesting other ways since they clearly aren't doing it with the process that they have for whatever reason that we are not privy to. I'm just saying that there are several ways to do it, and they're choosing not to. I'm not trying to convince you this way is better. I'm struggling to understand what it is you're questioning.

Well, at the point where you have to assemble two pieces and fill and file to fit smoothly...why not just drill them? The reason they don't do it is because it would cost more man hours to pluck out all the little pegs from all the little bolters. It's just neat in the sense that I hadn't thought of casting that way. Sure it could all be automated, and likely we won't have to drill a bolter again, but I kinda like doing it. I hum and think of what they are shooting at. It fills my otherwise empty days with meaning.

 Purifier wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
They could just make the end of the barrel separate, so you glue it on to the end, then it would just be a part of the sprue, lying sideways.

Which would basically be same as 2 part pieces with same drawback: More assembly time.

If they gave a single toss with the keyword Fly about that, they wouldn't have made skitarii chicken riders out of 800 parts each.

80 actually and not exactly comparable. One is fast attack what looks like sentinel styled vehicle and thus not in numbers, one is weapon used in lots of kits which army is going to contain many more than skitarii riders. Oh and weapon that's used in "bit" more armies than 1.

Clearly GW figures 2 piece there isn't worth the gain it gives. Small benefit, more work.

Oh for the Omnissiah's sake, it's lile you're trying to make the smallest comment into a confrontation. I take it back. The reason they're doing it the way they are is to mess with you specifically, Finn.

 Purifier wrote:
Oh for the Omnissiah's sake, it's lile you're trying to make the smallest comment into a confrontation. I take it back. The reason they're doing it the way they are is to mess with you specifically, Finn.

Lol only one here looking for confrontration is you Not sure why you enjoy it so much but each to his own.

tneva82 wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Oh for the Omnissiah's sake, it's lile you're trying to make the smallest comment into a confrontation. I take it back. The reason they're doing it the way they are is to mess with you specifically, Finn.

Lol only one here looking for confrontration is you Not sure why you enjoy it so much but each to his own.

80, actually.

Another reason is that the front of the barrel is often also the connection point on the sprue.

One of the only gripes I have about GW sprues is how often fiddly bits are either connections themselves or on either side of the thicker ones so my knife slips right through them when it finally passes.