GW resin: is it bad or just Kaldor Draigo?

[Kaede45]

So I recently bought Kaldor Draigo as I’ve become interested in the Grey Knights & well the model looks good, the sprue was a pain in the ass! The helmet came separated from the rest of the sprue & had a lot of excess resin on it (especially around the neck), the boots have extra resin to where I’m gonna need to file it down carefully, there were connections in weird & hard to reach spots that made me nervous & while removing the sword arm a bit of the pauldron chipped!

 

I’ve bought a few custom resin bits (heads & chainsword arms), but they’ve all been solid & rather easy to remove without damaging them or second guessing where the bit starts & the sprue (or excess resin) ends.

 

As you can probably imagine, this being my first experience with GW resin models, I am kinda skeptical about buying any more without knowing if this is the exception or the rule, so my question is, of course, does anyone have experience with buying GW resin models & are all/most of them as messy & troublesome or did I just happen to buy one of the bad ones?

[Evil Eye]

Most modern resin kits are pretty decent from GW nowadays. That said a lot of the old Finecast-era resin was HORRENDOUS, and I got a MTO Dark Eldar Lhamean that was clearly old stock, with all the dreadful QC you'd expect of Finecast. I'd say it's likely you just got a dud.

[Ramell]

The wonders of Finecast. Resin models from the main GW studio tend to be like that, though it varies (my limited experience was not that bad, but still far from great). 

 

Resin models from Forge World, for the specialist games like Horus Heresy and Necromunda, tend to be much better, especially the newer ones.

[Firedrake Cordova]

My only experience with the "regular" GW resin is the Chaos Warrior weapons upgrades - they were pretty clean, other than the relatively large "gates" connecting the parts to the surrounding frame (in fairness, they were pretty easy to cut through) [example]. I've had a few Forgeworld kits - the Razorback turrets, Necromunda weapons sets, and some Aeronautica Imperialis bits (Tau ground assets and Arvus) - some of the weapons kits had flashing, and all were connected to relatively large blocks of "waste" resin [example one, example two, example three].

Edited January 7 by Firedrake Cordova

[Sky Potato]

The issue is Draigo, sadly.

 

He is a Finecast model. This is what GW switched to when they stopped making the metal models, basically using the old moulds used for casting the metal minis but with the Finecast resin instead.

 

Forgeworld resin, on the other hand, uses much higher quality resin, and moulds designed specifically for resin casting.

 

It used be be more obvious which was which when the GW and Forgeworld were separate websites.

[Magos Takatus]

Finecast was pretty shocking. The old resin Ork Kommandos were from that era and they were absolutely covered in small triangular resin bits bridging the gap between parts. Even after an extensive cleanup I still found surplus resin during painting that I had to cut out and re-prime. Be extremely meticulous when cleaning up old GW resin kits.

[N1SB]

Congratulations, Brother Kaede, you just earned another honour badge.  Dealing with Finecast is a hazing ritual in The Hobby.

[Naryn]

What's weird is that sometimes you'll get an absolutely pristine Finecast print and sometimes they're just dreadful. I had a Masters of the Chapter that barely needed to be cleaned, but then I've had some stuff that was barely useable as-is. My impression was that generally the later production time the better, and the Finecast i've received lately has been pretty clean, but there's always the risk of getting an older cast from the stock room. It was easier to check ahead of time when GW used more clear blister packs.

[MadGamerAK]

On 1/7/2025 at 7:00 AM, Kaede45 said:

So I recently bought Kaldor Draigo as I’ve become interested in the Grey Knights & well the model looks good, the sprue was a pain in the ass! The helmet came separated from the rest of the sprue & had a lot of excess resin on it (especially around the neck), the boots have extra resin to where I’m gonna need to file it down carefully, there were connections in weird & hard to reach spots that made me nervous & while removing the sword arm a bit of the pauldron chipped!

 

I’ve bought a few custom resin bits (heads & chainsword arms), but they’ve all been solid & rather easy to remove without damaging them or second guessing where the bit starts & the sprue (or excess resin) ends.

 

As you can probably imagine, this being my first experience with GW resin models, I am kinda skeptical about buying any more without knowing if this is the exception or the rule, so my question is, of course, does anyone have experience with buying GW resin models & are all/most of them as messy & troublesome or did I just happen to buy one of the bad ones?

I am pretty sure the fine cast resin stuff that GW makes is bad in general, Kaldor Draigo had a piece or two break off when he was being opened.

[Grotsmasha]

All I'm going to say is I charge double for assembling metal models, and triple for GW Resin (not FW).