Re: [DSII] Genre

>On Mon, 22 Feb 1999, Nyrath the nearly wise wrote:
>
>> Michael Llaneza wrote:
>> >
>> > IMHO the best thing GW ever did
>> > was the plastic Epic-scale infantry. Plastic is expensive to set up
a
>> > production run for, but dirt cheap over a long production run.
>>
>>	I was always curious about that.
>>	An uninformed layman would think that metal miniatures
>>	would be more expensive to produce than plastic ones.
>>
>>	I guess plastic is less forgiving a medium to work with.
>
>i understand that the expense is in the moulds; since lead melts at
quite
>a low temperature, you can use a vulcanised rubber mould, and you can
make
>that yourself with comparatively little effort or expense. however, the
>lead is expensive. now, the plastic used in minis is a thermoset, so
you
>have to heat it to a high temperature to get it to fuse. thus, you need
>steel moulds, which are very pricey. however, the plastic is cheap.
>
>thus, you use plastic in steel moulds for your large-volume,
low-diversity
>stuff, like basic tanks and troops, and lead for the more exotic and
>diverse stuff.
>
>of course, everything GZG makes is exotic and diverse, so they only use
>lead :-). well, except for the resins. i assume that resin is cheaper
than
>lead, but that for some reason it's no good for small minis. can anyone
>explain this?

Resin IS cheaper than lead, but surprisingly not by as much as you'd
think
(not per kilo, anyway - of course the resin is a LOT less dense, so goes
much further). The reasons resin is not used for small stuff like
figures
are due to fragility, curing time (metal cools to setting point in
seconds
after pouring, resin takes hours!) and a lot of technical difficulties
in
moulding. Grendel tried resin 25mm figures over here a while back, and
they
were spectacularly unsuccessful in the market. Resin is great for big
stuff
(vehicles and buildings) but very unsuitable for gaming-size figures.

>
>of course, i was told all this by a GW store manager, so it could all
be
>disinformation ...

Actually, it's pretty accurate - you must have found the one that had
the
Company Brain Cell that week.... <grin!>
>
>Tom

Jon (GZG)