"Adventures in Finecast" Topic

You may remember Elmo worked with Finecast this summer for his Necron Overlord. The basic observation was that the material was weak and brittle. Anyway as part of the modelling, I removed the staff of light above the hand for a plastic warscythe: drilled and pinned even!

As often happens, shiny new objects appear and the model sits on the painting table. Lo and behold six months later the back of the weapon has warped under its own weight!

I guess I could hang the model upside down like a side of beef but this doesn't bode well for the long term durabilty of the miniature! Finecrap indeed…Elmo is done with GW until the formula changes.

Nah, surely that isn't possible.

I mean with the prices they charge for resin these days, and their commitment to such a superior material to cast minis from.

Perhaps you violated the warranty by not keeping it lying flat.

Ah well, sounds like a call to GW is in order.

Good luck with that (seriously, I wish you success)!

This is the same reason I won't buy any of the Black Scorpion Pirate minis. They look great, but I prefer metal.

I was just telling a friend in the UK the other day that I still refuse to buy any GW characters cast in resin. I would have gladly shelled out more for durable, metal castings, but that was not in the cards for their bottom line. As expensive as GW has always been, I always felt I was getting a quality product. They have tarnished their brand and image with this poor trash.

Why does Elmo speak of himself in the third person?

Get two dishes of water, one hot, one cold. Dip in the hot water – reshape the mini, then dip in the cold.

Get two dishes of water, one hot, one cold. Dip in the hot water – reshape the mini, then dip in the cold.

Yes, just like you have to do with metal minis. Oh, wait . . .

Get two dishes of water, one hot, one cold. Dip in the hot water – reshape the mini, then dip in the cold

OK, what's going to happen after the miniature is painted and sitting on a shelf for 6 months?

I presume the staff will droop again only NOW how do I heat straighten something that's already painted?

Fabric paint is quite flexible…

Conceptually resin is not per se a bad idea. Spartan is producing great results without the warping/drooping issues and it has been a long tine since I had to deal with a bad bubble situation on any Dystopian models while the Mongoose resin models for ACTA:Star Fleet were God awful and only rectified by a swift switch to metal.

Spartan worked to produce the right resin from the start whereas Mongoose at least opted to respond quickly and switch back. Has GW acknowledged that a problem even exists?

get one in metal ?

This is the same reason I won't buy any of the Black Scorpion Pirate minis.

Nope. Black Scorpion runs thin wire through the smaller pieces for less breakage and warpage.
I have not had a problem with my BS figs.

I just refuse to buy resin figures. It's fine for larger monsters or vehicles… but for tiny men with spindly bits I want metal or hard plastic.

It's a design "feature", just like "Always on 4-Wheel Drive".

That way they get you to pay more for it, since you'll have to repair or replace it sooner than you otherwise would have to.

Their marketing people should get big bonuses this year for coming up with that. It's not everyone who can design miniatures to fail shortly after purchase, and have to be replaced so quickly, at the new, higher price.

Simply brilliant!!!!!

It worked on my painted eldar…

Glad I got all my GW ork character figs in metal already. Don't like fine cast. Looks good, but way to brittle and its' lightness makes me nervous.

It is good for one think – heavy conversion work.

I saw great things done with models that wouldn't be possible with metal miniatures.

But apart of that I hate it as a miniature medium.

For heavy conversion work I prefer something called 'plastic'… Gee I wonder why we can't get character/packs/bits in plastic? Oh, we can? And the reason they cost 5 times as much as the other plastic models of the same size and quality is 'because we don't need as many' right? And the reason Finecast costs more than plastic OR metal is because…

…because it costs LESS for GW to produce and greatly reduces the second hand market.

No thank you GW.

"Why does Elmo speak of himself in the third person?"

Elmo is a saint with his own brand of fire which is really ball lightning or static electricity seen on the masts of ships before a storm or something. Awesomeness has its privileges.

Lo and behold six months later the back of the weapon has warped under its own weight!

Am I the only the person who on reading that immediately though 'planned obsolescence'? … yeah, okay they've been doing it for years through new rules editions, but it seems they've now found a way to give their figures an actual shelf life!

Just because something increases your margins doesn't necessarily make it a good idea if it results in your brand equity being given a thorough kicking! And if on typing Finecrap into google it automatically suggests "Finecrap citadel" then I would take that as strong anecdotal evidence of it getting such…

Does it? Bwa ha ha ha!

If you want one example…..just one example of how resin can be a major improvement over metal in same cases…. The Krootox.

I would bet any of you that you cannot assemble a metal one without either hurting yourself or uttering such profanity that you could make a sailor blush. The new resin version however…. seriously warped gun barrels for the rider, but at it takes less than a year and less than a thousand usages of "!" to assemble. I just recently took my metal krootoxs in to see if the recycling plant would take them because I can't even build them. 12+ years modeling experience. I can't build them. Just. Can't. Kept the riders though so I'd not have to worry about trying to fix the stupid gun barrels.

I suspect I invented a few new swear words when trying to build the two I had. Or at least new combinations of existing ones.