Andrea Miniatures New Releases

[Roc]

Hey Jeff, show us some of your work.
Do you have a web site?

Cheers
Roc

 

[Jeff]

I will when I find the cable for my camera. I took photos of some of the castings I do want feed back on them. It is really hard to get photos of the bare metal castings. You can see the figures in this thread over at TimeLines. Our site is on hold for a few weeks. My partner is on jury duty.

http://www.timelinesforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6250

When I think about the cost of doing a new mold over the bad press you get for putting out bad castings from a worn mold it is really a no brainier to redo the mold.

 

[Einion]

Since this thread has become a bit of a catch-all for discussions arising from this I'll continue here instead of starting a new thread as I'd intended.

Sir, that is an incorrect statement regarding Grieve`s vintage work.

No, I'm afraid it's not. As Guy's post makes clear, what I've seen is hardly isolated and that 'buy early or not at all' rule of thumb was handed down to me from my modelling chums so that's a group of modellers who shared the same experience.

But as always, individual mileage will vary.

I have been knocking about the Hobby for over 25 years...

Rounding up to 30 for me.

I have never seen a poor quality Grieve casting.

I've seen plenty (conservatively, dozens). I own a few and all of them are, unfortunately, below what I would consider to be the cream of the crop.

I've also examined multiple examples of the same kit on a few occasions, looking for the best of them to buy, and ended up putting all back and walking away empty-handed; so substandard product was hardly isolated enough that it was just one poor cast among many of uniformly high quality.

...FYI [D.F. Grieve figures] were also produced in very low numbers, hence no chance for mold damage.

Casting problems may not be about the quality of the mould only*.

My Iron Duke bust - bought directly from David at his stand at Euro, within a short time of release - was so uniformly pitted in most of the recesses on the front I had to abandon the idea of painting it normally and to salvage something from it I decided I'd have to do it as a faux bronze.

*From what I've been told this may be an issue with the casting metal being too hot, or the mould not being completely dry. But regardless of cause the cast was the way I describe.

Your similar comments about Vintage Ray Lamb castings, whose molds are still in production, and Pegaso also have no basis in fact...

If you want specifics start a new thread on casting quality and I'll give examples. I can assure you I'm not mistaken nor do I have some axe to grind with regard to either maker that would lead me to be deliberately misleading (in the case of Ray Lamb quite the opposite is the case in fact).

...and are damaging to their business and the hobby in general.

The truth is what the truth is. As I posted a while ago in a previous thread:

You can virtually name the maker, particularly if they cast in white metal, and someone will have had a badly-cast model from them, even if the majority of people have only good things to say about them.

Einion

 

[rej]

Ok guys, since I was a BIG part of this thread re my badly cast bust, its only fair to straighten things up once they have been straightend.............

As promised by Cesar Alvarez of Andrea, he changed my badly cast bust with a MUCH better cast bust, and yes he did buy me the beer as he promised

I also helped him track Rick Rutter (I know Rick from pics in mags and Boston though we never got introduced) as it seemed that Rick also had a badly cast bust, but during the email exchanges between him and Cesar, the name appeared as Richard Rutter and Cesar PM'd me for help re if I know this Richard Rutter way back when the bust was in so much hype.........I PM'd Cesar that he (Richard Rutter) might be Rick Rutter, and it was left at that..........

So either on Fri or Sat in Girona, I went up to Cesar and asked him if he still wanted to meet Richard Rutter as I spotted Rick in the hall..........so I discreetley showed Rick to Cesar, and left the rest of the affair to him...........he changed Rick's bust as well........

So Rick forgive me if I did anything behind your back without introducing myself, but I searched for you after the exchange took place, and could not find you anywhere.......you must have left early as I never saw you again after that Andrea meet up.........at least I served of some good I presume as you got a replacement.............

Regards to all............

Ray

 

[Cesar Alvarez]

Hi pals,
was a pleasure to met with all the friends at Gerona.
Ray you´re great. The next time we can enjoy with another beer talking about figures, I don't forget your Grenadier, see the next Figure International in September.

Rick, your figure was changed, I´ll hope you paint it and send to us the pictures with the bust finished.

Regards to the old friends: Bill, Greg, Fabio, Mike, Raul, Pepe, Christian, Fan Fan,
Mauro, Ivo, Mariano, Andrea, Christos, Kostas, Marij, and many more.

Great World Expo!!!