Games Day has come and gone. I was lucky enough to get to spend some time with many of the GW studio staffers, particularly Jes Goodwin. Besides the normal, “Whats coming out? What are you working on?” I had one other question, “Whats up with finecast?” (note while we did discuss basic casting techniques, this is MY thoughts on the topic- with no input from GW or any employees)
For those of you that follow the show I’m sure you know some of us have been very critical about the quality of finecast and all of us have had serious miscasts in our initial purchases. With that in mind I wanted to try to get an understanding of the finecast process and the challenges it presents. I think the first step in understanding finecast is to look at how the metal and resin molds have traditionally been cast.
I have had limited experience in using a spincaster which is how most metal models are made. For those of you who are unaware of how this works, metal is heated into a liquid form and poured into an opening on top of the machine. The metal flows into a rubber mold and centrifugal force pushes/pulls the metal ( as it spins) into the mold to fill the area where the model will be cast. The challenge here as with any mold making is properly gating the mold so that air can escape and the metal can flow properly into the channel for the actual model. Typically this can take several runs to get the gating correct and ensure continued quality throughout production runs. It’s not an exact science and in my humble opinion can be quite frustrating.
Resin casting on the other hand is a very different process, although the molds still need to be properly gated, just like the metal molds. I have had some experience working with resin, nothing on a production level, but making my own bases, odd bits and parts for scratch building. In resin casting chemicals are mixed to form a polymer which will bond and harden over time. The molds can be single part (as I use for bases or flat backed items) or dual part which in my limited understanding is most commonly used for our beloved toy soldiers and accessories. Resin presents its own challenge in that air bubbles can become trapped in the resin and form pockets (both visible and invisible) within the finished product. A process called degassing can be used in which a vacuum chamber is created to draw the air bubbles out of the resin and t0 the surface. This would be my assumption of how Forge World creates thier amazing models.
Now imagine trying to combine the two processes. There are inherent difficulties in trying to create a resin that works in metal spincasting molds and meets EU restrictions for carcinogenic materials. Also understand that if you try to apply degassing to whatever chemical makeup the finecast resin is, you will cripple production times and degassing on that level would be insanely time-consuming. So what are we left with?
It seems to me the only way GW is going to sort out any finecast issues is to look at optional additives in the resin mix and continue to revamp gating so that problem area of the molds will flow better.
(I will go out on a limb here. but I’m positive I’ve seen different sprue configurations on the same finecast model, which makes me wonder if they are messing around with improved gatings.)
I’m sure at this point some of you are thinking, “wow” what a fanboy”, but thats not really the case. All I’m saying is like any new platform roll out there will be problems and there will eventually be solutions. Finecast is here to stay, it was a business decsion made at the highest levels of the company. Which I may add is a public company and has to show shareholders dividends and the willingness to do difficult things to improve company financials and stay competitive.
No one should accept poor quality in items they pay good money for. GW understands this and at least in our area has been more than willing to swap out defective finecast for something that you will find acceptable. If your unhappy with what you have call them, same as any other business. I’m willing to give it another couple of months and see how the second wave of releases looks and we can revisit this topic then =)
Note- I’m not a chemist or an engineer, just a hobbist voicing my thoughts.
Kharn
