What\'s the worst minis in terms of mold lines and cleanup?

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Frustrated Father

New member
Me again!

I\'m in the middle of cleaning up a bunch of Celtos miniatures and I\'m telling you, I\'m finding a LOAD of work with mold lines and the like and its getting damn aggrivating as all I want to do is paint them. Is this a common problem with the Celtos line or did I just \'luck out\'?

Also, which manufacturers are the worst for mold lines and clean up? Not saying anything bad about the minis themselves as they can be great minis with horrible cleanup, but I\'m just curious so that I \'know\' what I\'m getting into in the future when I start buying more miniatures.

Anyone?
 
K

Klute

New member
Celtos stuff Ive bought has been OK,normal for mould lines.

Worst probably GW Lord of the Rings.
Best,,SacredBlade are top notch also Spyglass.
 
S

StevieEvs

New member
I wouldn\'t say that GW had the worst mold lines, it\'s just where they put them.

Why do they put a mold line across the smoothe part of a Tau helmet?

I like WarMachine stuff for molds. They\'re in a nice, easy to hide place and they\'re usually really neat too.

The worst thing that I\'ve ever done while removing mold lines was on a Stone Circle hooker with a .45.
She\'s a Chinese girl (from the China Town range) and I spent ages filing down this stubborn mold line which ran right the way down one side of her dress.
It wasn\'t until I finished that I realised I\'d just filed away the detail of a seam.
D\'oh.
 
SJB

SJB

New member
Contrary to popular belief you don\'t have a huge amount of control over where a mouldline goes on a miniature. The rubber liquifies during vulcanisation and the mould line is where the two mould halves settle against one another.

By building up sections of the rubber before vulcanisation you can \'persuade\' it to go to an area (to an extent) but the rubber goes where it will.

With experience you get to know roughly how the rubber behaves. Then you have the agonising decision. Do you compromise your choice of poses due to mould lines? If a figure with the head cast on is looking to the side you can expect a mouldline down the face. With luck it runs down the forehead and along the bridge of the nose and is no real problem but sometimes it will go to one side and run down an awkward area.

Only other choice is to say \'never sculpt those poses\'. Alas we then get complaints about a lack of poses.

Most of us sculptors compromise. Just try to avoid sculpting figs that will have an awkward mouldline but not to the point where every figure is cast flat as a pancake.

Interesting fact: unlike metal miniatures, you can choose where to put the mouldline on a plastic miniature due to the much more intensive process of mouldmaking by design rather than by thermal reaction.

Oh, and I find the worst case scenario for bad casts is Forgeworld when their moulds are getting on a bit (and they do this quite quickly it seems). I\'ve seen true horror in resin from them over the years. Good thing their customer service is impressive :)

Steve B
 
R

Ritual

New member
I have painted an old mini from harlequin recently and it had mould lines everywhere. I think it had three complete sets of mould lines, at least. I don\'t get that ???

Also, since it\'s a quite old mini, the cast was quite bad compared to today\'s standards. There were lots of awkward areas where things just dissolved into a mess. I think I spent more time cleaning it than painting actually...
 
V

vincegamer

Active member
Plastic game pieces for \"Carnage\".

Honestly I\'ve only seen very good examples from I-kore so I think you lucked out.
 
T

the_alleycat

Guest
The fitting is often off on Warmachine stuff, i don\'t have any experience of really bad mould lines except the occassional mini that\'s slipped past quality control.
 
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tidoco2222

Active member
The worst for me has been Alternative Armies. The minis aren\'t the best anyway but the mould lines and lack of quality can sometimes be appalling.
 
K

kittykat23uk

New member
I have had quite a few wolfen from Rackham that have been badly cast. Not just mold lines, but big chuncks of excess metal. :( Also Thunderbolt Mountain, I\'ve got two of their dragon figures and they are terrible casts. I think I\'ve just been unlucky with those (I got them off Ebay).
 
Z

Zordana

Member
Steve, I have to say the minis I bought from you were bloody fantastic in regards to mold lines (the minis themselves are fantastic, too, of course ;)).

As for the worst, i\'d also have to say gw lotr miniatures. Sometimes those are absolutely horrid.
 
V

vincegamer

Active member
Originally posted by kittykat23uk
I have had quite a few wolfen from Rackham that have been badly cast. Not just mold lines, but big chuncks of excess metal.
Click to expand...
I\'d be careful there. I was prepping a wolfen and I cut off what I thought was a \"big chunk of excess metal.\" Then when I got him all pinned together I realized it was a deltoid. I have to make him a new one. (smaller and pointing the right direction of course)
 
F

finn17

New member
Hehehe.....

Originally posted by tidoco2222
The worst for me has been Alternative Armies. The minis aren\'t the best anyway but the mould lines and lack of quality can sometimes be appalling.
Click to expand...
I always thought that was a part of AA\'s charm:flip:
They are cheap as chips generally and some of their sculpts are so bad, they are actually good:D

I agree with SJB however. The worst mouldings from an expensive manufacturer award goes to.....Forge World:mad:
 
S

StevieEvs

New member
Worst. Mold lines. Ever.

I\'ve not been too unlucky with ForgeWorld stuff but then I\'ve only got one piece from them.

The base is a little bit warped but not so much that it hampers using it as a terrain piece.
I\'ve tried everything on it too, hot water, iron, hair dryer. It\'s still warped. But that just means that it suits me better.
 
J

Jeff Hofmann

New member
Originally posted by Ritual
I have painted an old mini from harlequin recently and it had mould lines everywhere. I think it had three complete sets of mould lines, at least. I don\'t get that ???
Click to expand...

Perhaps the mold had cracks in it...

I\'ve noticed that some people don\'t like mold lines on the smooth parts of a mini. I prefer them on the smooth parts. They are easier to see and easier to file down without loosing detail.
 
R

ramonlaan

New member
I have literally spent 3.5 hours to remove the mold lines on the power armored grey knights. To be honest, that was 5 minis :)

Extra sets of moldlines are possible because production molds are fabricated from metal master casts. If these have moldlines still (and are therefore not quite masterfully cast masters IMHO) you get a fresh new bunch next to them. Some old GW minis (from the 80\'s) sometimes had these IIRC.

Ramon
 
D

donga666

Guest
Originally posted by ramonlaan
I have literally spent 3.5 hours to remove the mold lines on the power armored grey knights. To be honest, that was 5 minis :)
Click to expand...

Bloody Grey Knights :flame::flame::flame:

Cleaning up my G\'Knight Terminator took AGES!!!! It looked like it had been cast in sand or play dough, shocking amount of deformation, mould lines and \'grainey\' patches!! They must have rushed the casting and wrecked some of the moulds, VERY bad!:mad:
 
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