Bang on SF,

The irony is that "Fine cast" is great for large miniatures but just cant handle and is far too brittle for "Fine" details!

My fine-cast purchases have almost all been poor quality.
The Watcher was fine (needed minor repair work on the tenticals)
The Moria Goblin command pack (everyone but the capt was fine, the captain had chunks of his arms missing)
Dain & Balin -perfect conditon
Vault Wardens- droopy spears and bubles on chain-mail
Iron Guard- droopy weapons, helmet spikes missing, one sword was bladeless
-so I called GW and they sent a replacement pack that was just as bad.

Now I do not purchase fine-cast unless I can inspect it in person

_________________
Commission Painting @FB http://www.facebook.com/squyrepainting
Commission Customers include:
GBHL Youtube Channel
MiniWargaming

@ mertaal, I agree with your post totally. I don't believe it's a bashing issue. There is a definite problem with the product that needs to be addressed, and to date, it hasn't been resolved.

I want to see GW continue to produce the LotR range, but I just can't bring myself to pay money for something that I know has a 70-90 % chance of being either a major rebuild, or unusable.

Goods sold are required by law to be of 'merchantable quality'. To GWs credit, when I have had to arrange a replacement, it has been done without question, and at their expense. The major difficulty lies in the fact that the replacements have all had the same problems. GW Australia finally offered to generously compensate me for my Finecast failed purchases with plastics, that were worth more than the Finecast pieces I ended up binning.

I know many of you have said you have had success, but the majority have reported issues that require more than just the expected amount of hobby level clean up.

I don't know if there is a fix, to this. Perhaps a politely worded letter outlining the problems, or a petition asking GW to re-release the LotR/Hobbit Finecast product in metal or plastic?

Their half yearly statement should be rolling around soon. I have yet to see any investor press release mention Finecast as anything but a boon. One would hope astute shareholders might read further to find the actual truth of the matter.

Just to give you an idea of what put me off Finecast, I purchased around $100 Aus worth of Finecast figures that were replaced three times (at least). Then about $200 Aus of replacement plastic was sent to me. Postage costs were all paid by GW. If you extrapolate how many times they might have to do that based on the amount of Finecast in their range in a financial year, the loss could be be a staggering amount.

The replacement may seem generous, but there was an element of compensating me for not supplying a replacement 40k anniversary figure when they received new stock. My order fell through the cracks and they ultimately couldn't supply what would have been my fifth replacement figure.

While I cannot fault GWs replacement policy, it became just as frustrating for them as for me, when each successive replacement had the same faults.

I've been collecting GW miniatures on and off since the 80s, and I've only had to ask for two metal figure replacements. A Frodo, with no nose, and a metal Balrog body that was warped badly so that the halves just wouldn't go together. I'm sure other grognard aged gamers here would be able to cite similar percentages. When you compare that to the Finecast problems reported in this thread alone, the preferable production material, at least from the customers point of view is obviously plastic or metal.

My apologies for waffling on, I feel terribly frustrated by this situation as there seems to be no easy solution that GW might entertain because of a production cost hike.

_________________
Cheers
Athelas

I've bought two finecast sets from GW so far.

Dwarf Commanders.
Goblin Town Captain.

Captain had a bent sword that straightened out with just a little pressure and didn't require heating. It isn't brittle, but still bends in whatever way it likes at the slightest touch.

The commanders box set on the whole had no issues. One shield had a bubble that meant part of the rim looked like it had been hacked apart, so I actually didn't get a replacement as I was quite happy with the effect.

The quality of the detail etc. has been excellent.

Disclaimer: I have exceptionally bad eyesight and wear large 'jam-jar' spectacles, it's quite possible the miniatures have many minor tiny bubbles that i simply cannot see. I don't use a magnifier to paint.

_________________
Essex, UK based SBG/WOTR player!

My SBG WIP thread.

Most of my Finecast models (Logan Grimnar from 40K, Watcher in the Water, Young Thorin, Young Dwalin) have been fine. Young Balin and Thror have come with bent swords, and Thror took a bit of cutting to put together, but I haven't really had many problems with them. I haven't encountered any glaring problems that weren't easily dealt with yet.

_________________
See my WIP thread here. viewtopic.php?f=50&t=25624

I wonder if this is an issue for trading standards, as the good are clearly poor quality? I wonder if there is anyone out there qualified to advise on this?

Well thing this Bilbo , as soon as you have started painting the model , you cannot in effect get it refunded because you have accepted the state of the model as it comes and all liability for it. Im curious what happens when you model starts to wear down and melt i mean metals we knew we could depend on after all it was "metal" this Finecast i need more information on its stability as a material melting point temperature , durability over years etc to get a better picture.

Is it not strange that GW switch to this wonder "material" when plastic was perfectly fine , i guess the Licenses was damn expensive for them , finecast made them gain just over perhaps level of break even and their own branded models ( 40K , Warhammer Fantasy give more profit in the long term ). It seems GW have not invested enough casting technology for finecast yet instead choose to take short cuts in the pursuit of profit at the highest achievable level while maintaining a PR mask. Not even caring of the embarrassment of opening a couple of blisters in store ( customer walks in for example and sees this... not very good for that local store seeing a couple of blisters opened etc) until you and the manager agree that it is not miscast and then have differences of what is a "miscast".

Why on earth are they even selling a "miscast" , that there IS an issue for trading standards i believe however while they refund and exchange the lottery casts ( as that is basically what this is , some get lucky , some get unlucky ) the legality of such a claim could be seen as void. If you are constantly sending miscasts back around the 5-8 mark then you might have some basis for "Poor Quality" case bought against GW.
Until GW start retreating on the refund policy they currently have for "Finecast" we will just have to lump it. Judging the customer reaction i would say they are using a Profit> Quality in the long term sense ( reason being is the miscast refund policy is very generous , yet just improving this technology a bit they could gain alot more support in the long term and ultimately would not have to resort to customers using this as heavily as they are. Let's just hope that they improve this casting technology so its profitable for them and less aggravation for us as that would most likely improve their customer relations and PR image.

I am no legal expert or able to fully advise on this , just i did some research on what constitutes as a "Poor Quality". In relation to an example given by trading standards based on past cases against companies in the past. Problem being is that they have not been model producing companies like GW or as big as GW. So the Issue of, if this Finecast issue is a matter for trading standards means it is a very murky area in my opinion. Don't forget GW are able to afford very good lawyers when it comes to issues such as these. David vs Goliath springs to mind.

My issue with trading standards is the G.W. sell a supposedly high quality product that in reality has always been substandard. I have absolutely never seen a bubble or problem free fine cast miniature.

They naturally must replace by law substandard products that do not resemble the perfect casts advertised on the packaging. The issue seems to be that G.W. will keep replacing substandard products until the purchaser to be frank gets bored and gives in, swaps for something else, or follows the store staff advice to buy further products (Green Stuff) to correct the issue themselves.

I suspect that by manufacturing miniatures using what in my opinion is a resin "not fit for purpose" that probably costs almost nothing, means that they can afford to replace a percentage of faulty miniatures as part of their business plan (that would absolutely never pass quality control in metal or plastic!) and still make a healthy profit.

GW cannot be done as they openly offer to replace any miscasts as they are a product of the production process. Trading standards will not be interested as GW has fixed hte process for all new models (since wave 3 of finecast)

The real problem with finecast is well gone. It was with the LOTR models which were designed with metal in might and not resin. They had no QA except for the mold emptyers. Now they have a QA group for finecast checking a high percentage like 25% (I know as I am friends with one of the team)


Plastic is SERIOUSLY expensive to produce, hence they dont do it much with hobbit. I already psoted somewhere the librarian scam.
£8 in metal, £18 in plastic. Do you really want plastic THAT much?

Yes. Money is no object for me in this hobby , i dont speak for everyone but should the customer not be given choice?

We are. I don't buy Fine Cast.

_________________
"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

I mean in the sense of Plastic OR finecast. one is more expensive than the other , in the same way custom order's from forge world are expensive.

I bought a FC Gandalf the White foot and mounted last December when I got back into the hobby. I also got EFGT plastic Gandalf from eBay. The difference in quality was massive. FC was bad, but I didn't know to return it. I just get metals of the old models from eBay now.

I can see recasting metal as FC causing issues, so am hoping buying some of the newer sculpts won't have these issues. It has put me off newer minis - I really want riddles in the dark and the white council, but they're an expensive 'gamble'.

_________________
One Ring WiP
Twitter: @barnsleyburglar

If they have actually upped their QA process and have a team on board, why oh why haven't they released some sort of press statement to put customers minds at ease over the situation?

For my money, I don't think a 25% check rate is near high enough for a product with such a bad track record. They should be shooting for 100% and winding back as the error count decreases.

_________________
Cheers
Athelas

Only have an FC Dragon. Had on a few minor bubble holes in places that can easily be ignored. A small gap in connecting the tail to the body, minor thing. Had for two years now, no drooping detected.

_________________
My Lotr backlog: 305/952[][][][][][][][][][]32% completed
Painting Lineup: Mumakil x2, Rohan Heroes x8, Haradrim, SKoDA

The real problem with finecast is well gone.

I am afraid that it really hasn't, the first mounted Azog that I bought (from the new Hobbit range several years down the line for fine cast, manufactured in a mould made exclusively for fine cast) was frankly appalling! The second Azog that I have received as a replacement is still frankly substandard, but I had to wait nearly a week for it to come to the store and frankly I just gave up and decided to green stuff etc the missing details and air bubbles! Every other Hobbit range Fine Cast model has had air bubble that simply only occurred 3 or 4 time of 20 + years of buying £100 of metals a month! Naturally some of the miniatures had other serious flaws.

Saying the situation has improved, involves saying that there was room (and drastic need) for improvement. The original release of finecast made clear they believed it was of a greatness equalling fire and the wheel - no problems were ever acknowledged, even though its many issues were well known within weeks of the launch (and should have been known beforehand; many of those models should never have been sent out in the first place). Then again: they save quite some money on those figures compared to metals. They can afford replacing them several times. And the fewer people bother with asking for replacements, the bigger their profits.. which is all that matters in the end.

I used to work in QA for plastics companies and metal companies
(gel pots and shaving foam metal cylinders)

We checked around 10% unless we found something significant and then we would check more... maybe 15% at most.

When I worked for M&S warehouses we checked 100% of products if they were high risk (silks from india is prone to mold in transport) but I could check 5000 nighties in a week so the over all added costs was mnimal as they paid me pittence.

It is all aobut risk