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?

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

Tom