- The model did not 'melt' into a pool of goo.
- The standing leg was pinned because the leg was bowing quite badly under the models own weight, it was not pinned all the way into the base because the leg was too thin and the angle of the leg and ankle made that impossible to achieve any way.
- The leg simply gave way, for whatever reason. I'm no chemical engineer so I couldn't tell you why or what happened.
- The Terminator standing not 2 inches away from the Gandalf was perfectly fine and that suggests to this laymen that it isn't necessarily and issue with Games Workshops Finecast resin alone, but that something about the Gandalf miniature itself perhaps.
- I have just put together a Dwarf Gyrocopter with parts just as thin as Shadowfax's leg and that has been just fine.
- Having held another Finecast Gandalf over the weekend I'm now more inclined to think that my Gandalf was actually a faulty product. Because the oscillation on that version on the standing leg was absolutely nowhere near as bad as mine. My Gandalf when wobbled slightly while attached to the base would sway quite far from side to side, this other Gandalf did no such thing.
- I'm hearing off of people saying they've had Finecast melt on them. Sorry but unless you show a picture and put it out there like I did I'm not going to believe you. As a word of friendly warning or advice though, if you do put pictures out there then be prepared for a shit load of abuse off of angry teenage fanboys.
- Oh and one last thing the Games Workshop did NOT deny me an exchange, they offered one straight away or a refund, so again people claiming they refused me such options are just not telling the truth.
That's it that is all. I can not believe that this weekend somebody actually tried to argue with me that my Ganfdalf turned into a puddle of goo!!! The genius didn't even backdown when I told him it was actually my Ganfdalf. People need to get some perspective on this because I have 3 Finecast models, two of which in the exact same environment have been utterly fine, no problems with deformation at all. The fact that I have just the one issue with the Gandalf miniature would suggest quite strongly that it was a 'fault' with that specific miniature. So can people please stop saying that certain things happened when they clearly didn't?
I wasn't going to take the article down but the level of Chinese whispers it has caused on message board and forums elsewhere is utterly bizarre and way beyond what I thought would happen. However it seems that their are just some people out there who just hate Games Workshop so much that they are incapable of looking at the incident in a clear and rational way, and that's not helpful to anyone, especially me when I get abuse flung at me because I've apparently said my Gandalf turned into a puddle of goo!!! JUST NOT TRUE!!! Peace out.
Like I said from the very start, its a con - from the "melting" incident - it does indeed look like one of the newer "plastic" resins - which also means 'dodgey" chemicals for its production. From what you say about the detail in your Blog, and from what I have witnessed myself it looks like the "extra detail" is a combination of things rather than being just down to the material - "cold" casting produces better detail than casting with heat, gas doesn't build up and it flows better into the mold. Air bubbles can be an issue though, and from the look of the break that was caused by an air bubble (don't forget even an air bubble that's invisible to the naked eye can cause a stress fracture). The colour of the material makes it easier to see the detail, shiney metal confuses even the best of eyesight, thats why models suddenly look so much better when you have either undercoated them or put a black wash on them - its an optical illusion. Pale grey resin will always "apparently" show more detail as opposed to bare metal. Untill such a time they invest in mold specifically designed for resin casting (more expensive than spncast molds) you won't see any huge leap in quality.
ReplyDeleteWell Doc you've actually had experience casting in resin and know way more about it than I do and I'd always bow to your superior knowledge on this stuff but for the love of God how the hell can they put this product out on the streets? For all the Spanish gamers in the likes of Madrid and Barcelona, they're going to have to start playing games in freezer trucks!!
ReplyDeleteRemember me going on about the Alkemy Range, being cast in the same sort of plasti-resin? They have had similar issues in warmer climates, in fact the more recent releases have been in Metal! This just smacks of another GW con-job, further down the line they will switch back to metal or maybe another material - for yet another price-hike. My Family has been in engineering and fabrication for decades, so I have seen a lot of different materials used in production of lots of different items - the stuff GW are using for their "Fine Cast" range, simply isn't fit for purpose.
ReplyDeleteWell obviously I'm not going to argue with you Doc. Its a horrible substance and his fecking leg finally broke. I'm not sure how the hell any one could defend or spin this!!! Its shit... I've had a message where somebody has claimed I must have put boiling water on it... Boiling water!!! Why the hell would I do that this cost me money and more importantly if it was boiling water it'd have melted far worse, perhaps I should do a video of pouring boiling water over it to prove I didn't!!! God some fanbois just don't like the truth do they?
ReplyDeleteYou need to share this story everywhere. [ dakka dakka, warseer, bell of lost souls, etc.... ] Force GW to answer up.
ReplyDelete@mutantpoo the former GW manager of Sutton Coldfield has just informed me that the Leamington Spa stores Finecast window display has also melted. If you want to post it on those places then by all means do so... I posted it on BoLS and got nothing but grief and insults off of people who don't want to hear any bad news.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to know what happend with this miniatures in Spain. Arghhhhhhhhhhhh!
ReplyDelete@Luis, it'll be interesting to see how GW resin 'holds' up in warmer countries. I reckon the room could've been as hot as 28°C as because of the insulation in the loft room it can get really, really warm... thing is Australia, Italy and Spain all get that hot on a regular basis!!!
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I ought to have pointed out in the article but didn't given just how angry I was is the fact that the big chunky Terminator Librarian right next to my Gandalf was completely fine. and had no problems at all.
Just kinda curious. The scientist in me wants to replicate this.
ReplyDeleteWhat direction does that window face?
How warm was it that day, outside temperature?
Is there Air Conditioning running in the room?
How much time passed from when you left the model until you noticed it?
Thanks.
@Keith I'm considering trying to replicate it myself again and recording it some way. The window I believe is west facing, although not exactly. The house is kinda southwest.
ReplyDeleteNo air-conditioning, its a thre brick vicyorian construction house, window is very thick to meet critical values of U reg's as I have newly fitted wood sash windows.
He was left in the room from about 2:00 the afternoon before, which the temp was between 22°C to 24°C.
It was found by me the following morning at about 12:00ish, so roughly 22 hours left alone, but some of that obviously would be night time. The room is very well insulated with both floor and ceiling insulation.
The model was pinned in both legs because they were a little too flexible for me and the none standing leg snapped when taking the leg off of the spru, as it had a big air bubble in the center of the leg.
It was placed on a green cutting mat if that's any help to you Keith. Now if the company you work for in Nottingham would like to contact me directly I'd be more than willing to actually show yiu guys the room. Cheers.
Some more info for you Keith, right now outside my house in the sun its recording somewhere between 17 to 18°C but in the room itself its recording 23°C. The sunlight isn't beaming through the window though like it was yesterday.
ReplyDeleteJust facepalm...
ReplyDeleteI've been doing some heat tests with my Finecast Dante and sprue. Did you try submerging the Gandalf in hot water (~73 C)? I have noticed that some bent sprue parts regain their shape if re-exposed to the heat.
ReplyDeleteAs a test I put a piece of sprue in my car, in the sun and the temp reached about 70C. The sprue was soft, and sagged a little, but it was a fairly thick piece.
I have actually being trying to reshape a Gyrocopter with warm water as I was hoping to use as an example of how utterly awesome resin is, because as anyone who has tried (and probably failed lol) to put together a metal Gyrocopter together its an utter bitch to pin.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually close to putting it together after cleaning it up and I have to say although I was initially a little pissy about the amout of warp on the resin Gyrocpter I do feel at least vindicated in my original belief that the resin Gyrocopter would be a better piece... because it is hands down no competition. I wasn't going to do a write up on the Gyrocopter because I dddn't want my Blog to become negative I really didn't (and still don't) but eventually I'm going to be positive about Finecast with regards the Gyrocopter!!!
Back to Gandalf his leg actually snapped when trying to reshape it back and here I'm going to call my bad, hands held up. You see I pinned the legs because they just felt too wobbly and on the standing leg the pin I'd inserted just made the job of re-shaping it impossible and it gave way... so I'm not too sure whether pinning was the right thing to do or not!!! Cheers for the advice though.
@Doctor Warlock, you are misinformed about Alkemy. Their plastic was nothing like the Resin that GW is now using (I have almost every Alkemy plastic release) and they never released a single metal mini. They are now being cast in resin by Studio 38.
ReplyDelete@Matias, cheers for that. I've never owned any Alkemy stuff so can't comment on it at all.
ReplyDeleteRight them external temp at the front of the house is 26°C and the ambient temperature in my lost room is currently a quite balmy 29/30°C. That's it no more comments on this thread from me. Draw you're own conclusions.
ReplyDeleteBeen pimping this all over websites like frothers without dropping anyones name. I think its hilarious, just not for those who have brought the product.
ReplyDeleteYeah, That resin going soft in the sun is *really* going to suck here in Bisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is Winter here and it was 24 degrees Celcius. Imagine what the resin will do in a closed car during our 35 degree Celcius summers?
ReplyDeleteDammit *Brisbane Australia.
ReplyDeleteMy Forgeworld Resin goes soft on the bookshelf in my spare room, what will this crap do if left in the car?
this happends with all resine figures...this is not new...if you give constat heat to resine, it gets deformed...you can´t blame GW of a bad user practice.
ReplyDeleteNo problems with this stuff here in Brisbane (Aus) at all, dunno what is going on there.
ReplyDeleteHad em sitting outside in the sun more than once drying out, even with a black base coat on.
Has been warm lately hitting 28C here, the real test on these will be summer.
I do have a question and you may have mistyped in rant mode, but you said the pin that was pinning the model to the base popped out, but if you look at the pin, there is no way it went into the base.
ReplyDeleteEven with the leg breaking you should be able to get it back into position. Forget it softening up and falling over, I would be pissed about the gaps opening up.
@djinn24 I said I wasn't going respond but, I will clarify this. The pin did not go into the base. It was designed to stabalise the standing leg above the ankle (or whatever its called on a horse) because it was having severe trouble actually standing up straight without it and was wobbling all over the place like jelly. It was impossible to pin down the line of the leg and straight into the base because the ankle and leg don't really line up. Hope that clarifies it, the other leg didn't actually touch the base and I was going to work on it to try and get it attached but I wasn't sure how to do it, either pin it down to the base which would of caused the standing leg to bow weirdly or what I'd have done most likely built up the base with green stuff, to make like a stone structure and then attach the shorter leg to the green stuff. Hope that makes a bit more sense.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting to see this clarification, and it seems that GW have done their best to rectify the problem for you. I haven't bought any finecast yet, but looking at them really like them.
ReplyDeleteAs for the problems, I've seen a number of issues, and in every case GW have offered a replacement/refund immediately. Interestingly, I did see one person have to go through 4 boxes of treekin to get a complete set, but it was always the same piece that was faulty. To me this suggests that there may have been an issue with the mould design/resin injection which meant that the resin wasn't getting to that specific part of the model.
The GW staffer was taking notes on which parts were faulty to pass back to the designers which suggests they'll be trying to refine the process to remove these issues in the future so hopefully we'll see a reduction in these instances.
I've said Andy in my Blog about doing a month of articles devoted to companies that make their product in resin that the switch over to a new material was never going to be easy. Believe it or not I remember the switch over to 'white metal' and there were people at the time deriding that decision. Maybe they were right maybe they were wrong, but that was a decision forced on GW by legislation, and I also think this switch to a lesser extent was forced on them primarily by the continued rising cost of metal.
ReplyDeleteI was actually very supportive of the move to resin, and my first blog on the subject was defending the decision against some criticisms I'd heard from some people. As I've said elsewhere they'll get it right eventually, they have too because they have too much riding on it. However right now the Quality Control is appalling, walked round a local GW checking blisters a few days ago and the level of what I'd personally deem unacceptable miscasts (not a surface air bubble or two) was just too high for me.
Also I'm not a GW gamer anymore, if I'm anything I'm a GW painter so for me I'm not too fussed about the miniatures really as gaming pieces, so that elastic or rubbery quality does nothing for me and I don't like it. However again as I've said elsewhere if you are a gamer its probably a good thing as hopefully it'll stop chips and breaks etc when the mini's are dropped and whatnot.
Maybe if you'd done your own research first before writing a blog post full of unsubstantiated speculations and stoked the furnace of hatred, all of this could have been avoided.
ReplyDelete@Sampo I just re-read through my original Blog (without the edits adding further info) and at no point did I make unsubstantiated claims, My Gandalf keeled over and I was angry about it and quite rightly so. The only thing I can be accused of and I'll hold my hands up here is being more angry than objective in the original post (possibly 99.9% angry to be fair), which I might add was only seen un-edited without the further clarification by 28 people. So I doubt it stoked the 'furnace of hatred' as you claim as it was already well and truly stoked… interesting though that you use such emotive language as well Sampo... why is that?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing its because like most things to do with the GW at this precise moment in time people tend to want to be either blindly loyal or just downright hostile for being hostiles sake. I make no apologies for the fact that I believe Finecast in its current state is a poor product, the miscast levels that I’ve seen tells me that and I think it’s unacceptable and I'm pretty sure the accountants at GW will also be thinking it’s pretty unacceptable as well. So for this reason alone they’ll put it right as the product returns right now must be killing their profits. As for all this being avoidable, maybe, but as far as I'm concerned not having put the pictures up, which I did consider for a few seconds before I pressed to publish the post would have been even worse.
Why? Because ignoring the fault and not highlighting it would have been worse, maybe I did weaken the leg with the pin as others have suggested to me, it seems plausible, and maybe the resin in the miniature itself was faulty, again having seen another Gandalf recently that too is more than plausible, hell I'll even say it’s likely. However one thing that is for certain with the idiots on both sides of the GW debate its impossible to have a rational debate or discussion because both sides only hear what they want to hear and then rant and use emotive language... maybe I can be accused of that in this instance, and I'd certainly have a look at myself if accused of that, but I feel there were quite strong mitigating circumstances in my case. However I'd point you towards my initial defence of resin (I still believe it to be the right move for their products they just need to sort out the intial problems rapidly) and even my rational look at the GWs decision to clip the wings of European online retailers as evidence that I can be reasoned and rational in discussing the GW. However I won't be doing so any more because I truly believe the majority of gamers can't be level headed where the GW are concerned. So I'll leave the GW debate to the GW haters and GW zealots. Carry on!!!
From an experienced modeller's point of view, the reason your Gandalf was bowing (pre-pinning) and then toppled is most likely due to air bubbles within the supporting leg, made worse by the insertion of the pin. The thin skin of the leg over the pin is then torn around the pin as it flexes, which in turn reduces the strength of the part causing the bowing to increase, which causes more tearing. It's a classic critical stress failure.
ReplyDeleteThis said, a less thermally-reactive material and/or a more rigid one would have more tensile strength than has been shown. In my opinion, the material is most definitely at fault - both in its inherent properties and in the QA of the mixing / casting process.
@Mez I too am a pretty experienced modeller 27 years and counting (God I'm a geek) and when I sat down with friends the first thing we all said was air bubbles and the pin will have weakened the stuff.
ReplyDeleteI inserted the pin though because I wanted to try and put Finecast in a positive light because at the time the Gyrocopter was driving me insane trying to get the parts back into shape and my Terminater Librarian was pretty poor to be honest... so Gandalf was my only hope at the time of showing Finecast in a positive light... ironic hey? lol.
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