Pewter or Resin? What are the pros and cons

[lastbesthope]

Guys,

Just wondering, what are the pros and cons of pewter/metal vs resin/plastic minis.

I like the heft of a good metal mini, but they are prone to all sorts of moulding issues.

What say you chaps, curious as it might affect some game buying choices I'm thinking of making.

LBH

 

[wolfprophet]

If your decision has anything to do with the new Finecast stuff, wait on it for a while till they work out the bugs and they actually listen to the hordes of angry customers.


Otherwise, Resin has it's benefits for ships, tanks and the like in any scale. Metal is better suited to those character pieces in 25mm and 28mm gaming. Plastic is suitable for the bulk of a 25-28mm scale army. With 15mm, the plastics coming out now are alright...if you just need soldiers and don't mind them not looking too good. Otherwise, stick with metal.

 

[Stormrider]

With 15mm, the plastics coming out now are alright...if you just need soldiers and don't mind them not looking too good. Otherwise, stick with metal.

You're probably not looking at the right 15mm models, there's some pretty amazing models out there that make 20/25/28 look infantile in comparison.

 

[wolfprophet]

Looking at the WWII ones mainly. Plastic Soldier Company is making a nice effort, but their plastic WWII infantry just look way too.... 2D for my taste. They lack character. But what they lack in character, they make up in selling you a company worth of men for the price of a metal platoon.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Wolf/Storm:I don't use PSC's figures myself (bit too small to fit in with most metal figure ranges, and I can get 50 mostly-great Skytrex infantry for a tenner anyway) but their tanks are fantastic and at £15 for 5 with assorted configurations (e.g. T-34s come with both 76mm and 85mm turrets, Pz IVs can be built as F/G/H versions) they can't be beat for value. The (rapidly expanding) resin and metal Forged In Battle WW2 range is also well worth a look, very high quality and far cheaper than the FOW models.

LBH: IMO plastic and resin vehicles are generally better detailed and much easier to put together than metal, although resin models can have many of the same issues as metal as the moulds age. I prefer resin/plastic over metal when I've a choice. Often cheaper too, and obviously far lighter to cart around

Infantry are another matter. Very mixed in size and quality, some ranges are far better detailed than any metal figures I've seen while others are, well, crap. If you're looking for historical stuff I'd suggest checking out the Plastic Soldier Review website. What were you looking into ?

 

[lastbesthope]

LBH: IMO plastic and resin vehicles are generally better detailed and much easier to put together than metal, although resin models can have many of the same issues as metal as the moulds age. I prefer resin/plastic over metal when I've a choice. Often cheaper too, and obviously far lighter to cart around

True, just worried about having a lone resin model in a metal fleet.

One advantage of the solid resin model in this case, over the partly hollow metal one, is thin bits of metal where ports, doors go won't have holes in letting you see through where you shouldn't.

I've got a metal multi piece mini with moulding and assembly issues, I'm being offered a metal or a resin replacement by the manufacturer, my choice, hence my seeking advice from people who have more experience with resin than I, who have none.

Well tell a lie I did put together a few SST bugs, unpainted of course :lol:

LBH

 

[wolfprophet]

I'd say go for the metal personally.


Iain McGhee, I totally agree on the PSC tanks. Skytrex figures, I likely won't ever use because I already have my fill of FoW infantry. Mostly bought back in '04 and '05 before all the QC issues and silly infantry aces and bears that increase ROF on artillery and outrageous price hikes.(When I started, a Panzer IIIM cost $8 USD. Now they're what? almost $15 USD?) If I do ever need more infantry, I'm definitely I'm taking the FiB route. I've seen their stuff in person at my LGS, as with the PSC tanks and infantry. They weren't being retailed though, the owner just bought some, painted 'em up and was showing them off in a case. I don't much care fro the integral bases sculpted on the FiB tanks though....but for their quality....and lack of QC problems from what I've been hearing, I think I could let it slip to get some nice tanks.

 

[lastbesthope]

Well having been in contact with their customer service email I've opted to go for the resin option, so it should be interesting to see how that goes, never built or painted resin before.

LBH

 

[Greg Smith]

If is 'real' resin (as opposed to GW Finecast) use a dust mask if you sand or file it. Super glue will stick it a solid as rock.

 

[lastbesthope]

It's not GW, I don't buy their models.

LBH

 

[wolfprophet]

Definitely wear a mask and gloves when prepping the model. Goggles too. Resin is an irritant and a carcinogen. I wish I'd known that back when I was 14 and working on Flames of War tanks (Back when they were affordable. About half the price they are now.)

 

[Chernobyl]

LBH, if you're referring to firestorm armada ships, they are both metal and resin...the game show a lot of promise, I'm looking to run a tourney next Kublacon

 

[lastbesthope]

LBH, if you're referring to firestorm armada ships, they are both metal and resin...the game show a lot of promise, I'm looking to run a tourney next Kublacon

[Jedi Mind Trick]Those are not the ships I was referring to[/Jedi Mind Trick]

:lol:

LBH

 

[Rob_A]

Well metal, in the case of large castings that are not hollow, can suffer from 'cream egg syndrome', which can be really dangerous for the poor sods who have to pull it out of the mould. Basically, it can be cool on the outside, but liquid on the inside and very eay to crush allowing hot metal to go everywhere.
Resin is a cool casting process with little to no shrinkage rate as well. It is the best way to recreate a sculptors original model. It also doesn't use the spin casting technique used in common Metal Miniature casting, which can put up to 10,000 tonnes of pressure on the sculptors master. This can damage and warp the Master piece and can also be quite limiting (the guys I sculpt for once recieved a miniature that was sculpted over a corrugated cardboard dolly which allowed the mould to crush hours of work!), resin will not do the same thing.
This can mean;
a) Better Detail, as sculptors are allowed to go to town.
b) Better poses (possibly) for the same reason as above.
c) Better 'fixing', it's rare that you will get shrinkage or 'pitting' which occurs in metal casting, usually when the metal cools down too quickly
d) Happier workforce, if not from the resin fumes, at least from the lack of dangerous hot metal nastiness (ever tried pouring hot metal into a cold mould? Not nice, gets hot metal EVERYWHERE, not recommended).

It's great for conversions too, much easier to cut, saw, snap etc... Making your own damaged ship counters etc should be very easy.

Judge Dredd Fatties in resin would be brilliant, I've been trying to convince my boss that some similar sized minis really need to go to resin...

 

[Chernobyl]

the FA ships have excellent detail both in metal and resin, they appear to use a CAD system similiar to mongoose adopted a while back.

Most of the basic ships are single piece. In my terran fleet only the battleship and carrier have been multi-piece; the carrier was all resin, the battleship was mostly resin parts with metal turrets.

My resin ships have needed slight crafting to smooth out some mold parts, but nothing a file or hobby knife couldn't fix.

Something I picked up from a friend was to put ships at different elevations, rather than use the flight stems as is. Help keep things straight when it turns into a scrum. But I've gone a step further and am making the base height proportional to ship size...small ships are lower, big ships are higher.

Chern

 

[Rob_A]

Yeah I'm sure that would help. Some companies have even sold extendable flying stems in the past, which can be adjusted during the game.

 

[Silvereye]

Resin's pretty good to work with, although some mixes can be quite brittle.

The only common flaw I have found with resin is 'bent' pieces, although this is easily be remidied with steaming (e.g. a kettle) and gently bending back to shape. It can also get similar pitting, and significantly more flashing then metal. The pitting is just as easy to fix with putty as metal and the flashing is far easier to remove with just a sharp knife.

You also REALLY need to scrub the pieces in warm soapy water to remove the release agents.

To get around the resin dust problem is to use the really fine grain (P400+) wet/dry paper with plenty of water. The water stops the dust forming so no masks or goggles needed.

If you're coverting the FA ships, then the ones in blisters in my FLGS are very good pieces of cast resin.

 

[Rob_A]

Well with any pitting, metal or resin (it is much rarer in resin) you just need to mix up a milliput 'slip' and smooth it over the problematic area.

Or ignore it and paint the damn thing! :lol: