Copplestone: Too much flash?

[The Bibliophile]

Seeking feedback...

I admit I'm a neophyte when it comes to wargaming and miniatures. I've recently picked up "Pulp Alley" and ordered about 150 miniatures from a half dozen different companies. Most look beautiful, but some received from Copplestone Casting seem to have an inordinate amount of "flash."







From the Copplestone site:


Has anybody else had this issue? What does a person do in this situation? Clean it off the best one can? Ask for replacements?

Again, I'm a confessed newbie, but this seemed excessive for the cost of the figures and in comparison to the quality received from all of the other companies I ordered from.

Thanks for any feedback...

--Joe

[Belgian]

That's too much flash, you should get in touch with the seller and ask for new miniatures or a refund. The quality is really bad not what I expected from Copplestone.

[Pijlie]

The amount of flash does indeed seem extraordinary. I ordered some gangsters from Copplestone two months ago and some of those figures also had quite a lot of flash and one lady's leg wasn't attached to her body (no break, but a casting fault), but not nearly as much as is present here. I chose to remove the flash (there is almost always some present on metal figures) and repair the leg.

Judging by the photos the flash on your figures should be removable as well. I doubt if Copplestone will take them back just because of flash, although it is hardly good advertising.

It pays to check whether the mold halves have aligned well so that the two halves of the figure fit together well. Misaligned figures should be replaced by the seller as these are clearly faulty castings.

It is a bother though. Not all companies cast their own figures and have to switch casters sometimes, resulting in some unpredictable quality issues.

[manfred]

I have bought a number of times directly from Copplestone and have never had that level of flash problems with the figures. Actually the Copplestone figures are normally quite clean with little or no flash. It looks like you would be spending a lot of time cleaning these figures up to get them ready to paint. I also suggest you go back to the seller you got them from and ask to have the figures returned and replaced.

[The Bibliophile]

Thanks for the responses. I ordered them directly from Copplestone (i.e., North Star Military Figures), so I guess I'll be getting in touch with them about this. Thanks for confirming my suspicion that this doesn't fall in the range of what's normally acceptable.

--Joe

[carlos marighela]

It has been a while but in the past I have bought a lot of figures from Mark. They were always very clean castings with minimal clean up required.

[Belgian]

Copplestone Castings has recently started to work with Northstar Miniatures for distribution and probably also casting. Think Northstar have their own inhouse caster(s) maybe that may explain the change in casting quality. Note maybe you just received a bad batch that slipped through their quality control. Just remembered this as it was announced a while ago.

Should add I have bought metal miniatures from Northstar quite a while ago and they were good quality without flash. Also received some of their metal miniatures for Frostgrave and those were also good quality with only some minor flash present.

[The Bibliophile]

I've contacted North Star and sent them photos. I'll report back regarding their response when I get one.

Thanks!

--Joe

[FramFramson]

Yeah, that's way more flash than I'm used to seeing from Copplestone. I hope the transfer to North Star doesn't mean a decrease in quality.

[BugPope]

Yeah, that's not an acceptable amount of flash, you should demand a refund.

I have a bunch of Copplestone stuff from before they got with North Star, and they've all had very little to no flash. On the other hand, I've had some issues with NS, like missing shields that never got supplied, flash and other casting flaws. So I'd write it down to them being honestly pretty sloppy.

[warlord frod]

I have ordered a lot of copplestone figs and NEVER had any problem. In fact they were so clean I ordered more right off. I have to believe this is a slip up and copplestone will make it right.

[marianas_gamer]

I have never had any flash when purchasing from Copplestone or recently from North Star. I have come to expect very clean minis from Copplestone and am quite surprised by your experience.
LB

[d phipps]

I have ordered a lot of copplestone figs and NEVER had any problem. In fact they were so clean I ordered more right off. I have to believe this is a slip up and copplestone will make it right.

+1

[MalcyBogaten]

I have never had a problem like that with Mark Copplestones' figures. I used to work in a Gaming shop and we ordered repeatedly from North Star and this range. Never saw this level of flash!

Maybe it was a worn mould or a loosely fitted one in the casting process that slipped through the net!

Personally I would just clean them up. But if you are new I understand your discomfort.

As has been said above though "Do the two halves of the mini actually line up along the flashline! That would be a big problem if they didn't!

Hope you get some replacements as Mark's minis are among the best!

 

[The Bibliophile]

Mr. Phipps,

For what it is worth, the miniatures I ordered from your "Pulp Alley" line were some of the cleanest castings of any I've ordered in my recent foray into this hobby. Thanks for the nice quality control, and fun sculpts!

--Joe