Since we never get tired of looking at these, at the bottom of this post there are even more photos (and here are even more!) on the POD quality, now that the worst issues seem to be mainly dealt with. First some thoughts on where the status seem to be right now.
There has been a very clear general shift of tone during the last week of POD posts on discord and facebook. While we’re still seeing some problems here and there, a lot more posts have been seen with only good news in them.
That’s great! 🙂
We did however also see a Morticians Guild box with what appeared to be another case of uncured resin, which has been reported to SFG and is hopefully being taken care of. Another downer was seeing Shark with supports from the 3D print in the middle of his face, contorting him pretty badly.
But apart from that, we’ve mainly seen happy celebratory posts with good stuff! Even several quite big orders have landed at their destinations with overall great quality and nothing to send a ticket for in them.
That feels sooo great. Especially since there are many out there who are waiting for the dust to settle and the initial QC issues to get handled. Here at The Bench I will not yet quite claim that we’re all clear, but it’s absolutely looking better and better! 🙂
To read more about what’s happened around the POD situation during the last months, have a look here, here and here, and in other such posts here on The Bench.
From what we’ve seen, SFG really does cares about this. If you have recieved something that is not a 100% good, send them a support ticket though their website as soon as possible.
There is some backlog there, so it will be a few days before they answer, but everything indicates that they will absolutely help you out.
It looks as though both QC and delays are leveling out, but there seem to be an unending interest in evaluation of the Print on Demand GB minis.
Feel free to send more images, through here/discord/fb/email 🙂
Before we drop into the photos, here are also some good points freely retold after a guildballer on the GuBS facebook page wrote about it a few days ago. (link to that specific fb post and his own words here)
“Some of the things that people are complaining about aren’t actually what they are being called. There is starting to be an echo chamber of misinformation.
The first thing is the general print quality. One problem with determining is the army of MMF printers could all be using different resins, settings and machines. There is always a risk that quality is going to be all over the place.
Second is support marks. There is no way to print these minis without supports, and they usually leave marks, typically on the back and bottom of models. Some models will have tiny little threads or supports inside capes and so on, but this is also rather normal usually. All these types of support leftovers are commonly removed from the end user (the customer). Having someone processing each model to handle these before shipping would add both time and cost which basically no customer would want.
Then we have layer lines. These lines are reduced with a lower height but also depends on how the supports for the prints are made. If they are professionally supported (which the SFG minis should be, but we don’t know for certain) then layer lines should be minimal. The line that is across the Silence miniature pictured in this post looks like that model got stuck and got pulled. That can be easy to miss, but should of course not be left without making a support ticket and asking for a replacement miniature. It can be fairly easily sanded down and taken care of, but it really shouldn’t have passed through quality control.
The reports of uncured resin might not be, but it’s always safest to be careful. Areas that seem wet or extra glossy can often be caused by the miniature not being fully dry when put for curing. Thus, the water/alcohol affects the curing process and while it’s not good it will in some cases not actually be uncured resin. If the area is still sticky though, make sure to thoroughly wash hands and other things that have touched the resin. Resin is cured by UV light, so putting a miniature with uncured resin in direct sunlight for a while will make sure that it is eventually cured.
Moving on to having stuff break in shipping. This is just caused by suboptimal packaging to be honest. We’ve seen numerous times that it’s only bubblewrap around each individual mini and straight down into a big box, and while the bubblewrap does a lot, it doesn’t help with long thin objects breaking. It bears mentioning that regardless of material and overall situation, no matter how good you package something it might break in shipping. It’s always bad and in grievous cases it should be replaced by the company as with other failures, but at the end it’s just something that happens sometimes.
When making 3D prints there are flex additives for making the miniatures a little more durable, but we don’t know how this is handled by MyMiniFactory in regards to Guild Ball minis.
Overall, as have been said by many others before, the quality seems to be good. The problem over time will probably bee the inconsistency that some orders may be below standard while most will be great. It’s completely understandable that customers who receive sub standard product will be upset, and SFG should absolutely take care of those customers in every aspect of their specific problem. But overall it honestly looks like the situation is handled pretty well given the situation (printing huge amounts in the fastest way possible when not having been fully prepared for it).
And after that condensed Ted Talk lets dive into the photos!
It quickly added up with new ones since the last POD post.
Remember if you get something bad, send SFG a support ticket though their website asap and even if they have several days backlog, they will help you out. Also, if you want your pics or your thoughts here on The Bench, just get in contact and we’ll get that sorted for sure!
See you on the pitch ballers!
