When I started this blog I certainly didn't intend to go on any sort of "name and shame" campaign against anyone, but in the interests of other current and future gamers I feel I have to add a few more pictures from my friend's collection to my review of GZG.
My friend bought a dozen vehicles, all wheeled. Here are a couple of them, an 8-wheeled APC and a 4-wheeled "Bobcat".
They check out okay at first glance, but a closer inspection reveals some serious pitting and mold lines.
The most startling defect is this large hole in the side which opens up into a huge bubble. I'm honestly not sure how you can get such a large pocket of air inside a 3-4mm thick metal wall but here it is.
I suppose these large indentations are intentional and there to save material, as they appear on all vehicles, but they sure are ugly enough to make it unappealing to turn the model on its side or back to represent it being destroyed during a game.
The Bobcat also has heavy mold lines all around.
More problematic is this huge lump of misshapen metal, presumably where the injection port was hastily clipped or perhaps even just twisted away. There's a reason I don't buy GW's Finecast - I don't enjoy resculpting missing detail! This one was the worst of the bunch but all 4 Bobcats had that area misshapen to some degree.
Then there's the mini hover drones. About half of these have a large chunk of the turbine missing, and fixing these will require a little more talent than the usual filling of holes with putty.
Not that GZG isn't capable of casting the turbines just fine - on the bottom side of the very same drones.
To finish on a positive note here are some nice mini aero drones, no complaints here.
Based on these models I'd give GZG a score of 5/10 for casting - barely above an enthusiast's first attempts to cast at home and really suitable only for gamers with years of modelling experience. Blah.
Well now I know not to bother with their vehicles. I have the drones and mine are ok, but the moulds were probably a bit younger as this was about a month ago. Also, the spider drones I ordered, apart from being kick ass models, needed a huge amount of cleanup due to an excessive number of mould lines all over them. So for I have assembled one, can't face the other two.
ReplyDeleteI'd say two things here. Firstly, although some of the moulds are ageing a bit now, and you do get the odd mould line or bubble, what you've shown here is by far the worst set of defects I have seen on any GZG models over the 10 or so years I've been following them and certainly atypical in my experience.
ReplyDeleteSecondly GZG's customer service is first rate. If you contact Jon I'd bet he will replace the piececs FOC. GZG is a one-man-band and Jon does everything from casting to packing and the accounts, so from time to time the QC may slip a bit and the odd lemon get through. The models are reasonably priced and the turn-around timeis usually outstanding.
G.
I agree with GJD... I have had many GZG vehicles, and I've never seen anything this bad. At worst it'd be a mold like i'd have to take care of.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to try contacting him, and seeing if you can get it replaced...
I had a similar experience with some GZG vehicles I ordered. I don't really care about mold lines and flashing to much, but I got a few models with some seriously heavy lines that took a good bit of filing. I was surprised how much work some of the models needed. In particular the wheels are extremely tedious to clean up. Others didn't need to much work. But I agree that it takes maybe a little more skill than most 15mm vehicles... kinda made me think of Inquisitor models.
ReplyDeleteThough I don't think any of that would really stop me from ordering from him again. But I will say that even though GZG is a one man operation, IMHO, that APC shouldn't have been shipped in the first place!