# Horizon Frankenstein recast comparison



## IanWilkinson (Apr 23, 2010)

Hi all first please don't turn this into a recast war zone!.. the moderators will remove posts and block this thread!.. please this is only a comparison for beginners in the hobby who might be wondering whats with all the 'Thai' recast kits on ebay.. or 'im getting a bargain'.. syndrome.
I have an original Horizon Frankenstein vinyl kit, this is one of the most recast kits out there!.. the recast version only sells for a few $$.. but when compaired to the original... well you can see how rubbish the recast is!... well here goes!

Original version is unpainted and gray vinyl, recast unpainted white vinyl.

Here is the two kits side by side for hight and width comparison




















both head shots side by side, notice the recast head width compared with the original.


Original head detail








Recast head, note no detail in hair and eye area.


























Arm details, note the original veins and metal band on wrist area.

















Recast vinyl kits may appear to be good value!... but i for one would rather have just one original kit than 10 crappy recasts!...


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## frankenstyrene (Oct 5, 2006)

Good post, thanks. Losing detail I can understand, but I will never understand why/how things that are duplicate-molded (legit or not) tend to _shrink_ with each passing generation. I'm still confused by the old pics of the original Marx Frankenstein figure sculpt towering over the plastic retail version.


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## Stoney-VA (Oct 19, 2011)

In before the lock....

Thanks for posting the comparison. I have a recast Horizon Frankenstein that I bought before I even knew what a recast was. Fortunately it is my only one and is still unbuilt. I'm sure most of us have fallen for the sellers that offer recast models up as genuine articles to unsuspecting customers. Hopefully I'll never end up with another recast.

I can see the flame war coming and hope the MODs lock this thread. before it gets ugly.


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## Chinxy (May 23, 2003)

ya know, kind of regretting it now but I sold my Horizon Monsters - all four last year. Wish I had not done that. But at least I still have my Billiken Frankenstein and Horizon Creature.
I really see what a difference that makes. I'm glad you posted that cause I didn't know about how different they really are. THANKS!


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## Auroranut (Jan 12, 2008)

Thanks for posting those pics Ian. It'll hopefully help the guys who aren't familiar with recasts.
I can't see any problem with this thread whatsoever and don't think it needs locking. There's no better way to educate than to actually see the quality difference between an original and a recast.....
Well done Ian!!:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Chris.


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## nautilusnut (Jul 9, 2008)

I recently viewed a friend's model collection and sitting on his shelf was a recast Horizon Catwoman. The thinner vinyl had warped over time and she looked like she had muscular dystrophy! No bargain there!


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## Facto2 (Nov 16, 2010)

Great post, Ian. :thumbsup: And excellent pics too. You should post this over at the CH, MC and UMA as well... Actually, you might want to skip UMA.


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## Disco58 (Apr 10, 2011)

Couple qyestions --
as Frankenstyrene said, how/why would a recast be of any different size? Whatever pieces you cast in medium 'X' should be the same size as the piece you used to make a mold, right? Are legit resin and vinyl kits smaller than the master sculpt from which the molds are made? Also, unless you're intimately familiar with the original legit piece, how are you going to know if you have a recast without a side by side? On evilBay I pass on anything from Hong Kong or Thailand, presuming they're recasts (which is not always the case), but I've also passed on some ToyBiz stuff because I'd never heard of them, the price seemed too low, thus I made the same presumption. Now I've seen posts about ToyBiz that say they're maybe not the best kits, but at least legit. There were a couple other kits that I really liked and was tempted, really tempted, but the only instruction sheet available was handdrawn, and in Korean (not my native tongue). I ended up passing on what might have been a legit really good deal. I've only been into figure modeling the last couple years, and most of the manufacturer's name are unfamiliar to me, whether still in business or gone years ago (and we all know there's a lot of 'here today, gone tomorrow'). How are you supposed to know?


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Professionally done molds made off a master should be fairly close but yes original castings can differ for several reasons.

A big issue is mold shrinkage. Many mold making mediums shrink to some degree. It also may not be a uniform shrinkage so something might shrink in depth but not length, etc. This leads to the distortion you sometimes see in recasts or even home cast items.


Recently Mig Productions put out a resin T-62 turret correction that came out to be a fair bit smaller than the master due to mold shrinkage. The difference was fairly obvious like 15% too small. Corrections were made and replacement items were sent out.

As part of my museum job one time, I had to make castings of a small metal meteorite. They had to be done quickly and I used a craft store mold making material that was readily available. I knew the stuff shrank and that it would not be good for many castings. Making the two part mold of the meteorite itself was easy. My first casting came out to be pretty much identical to the original in every way except, obviously, weight. The second casting, pulled that same day but a few hours later, was considerably smaller. It was not so much different in overall length, but the depth had diminished about 25 to 30% making that copy much slimmer than the original and first casting. After that, I had to make new molds for each casting as I could not use the distorted copies.

Pretty good clues that you are getting a recast, especially off eBay include:

Coming from Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc.
Being dirt cheap like $15 instead of $70
The seller uses a photo of the original kit, box, etc. but then says "box and instructions not included" 
The parts dont fit
The parts repel paint
The figure looks distorted
You wonder how you got a Billiken Predator for $9 and the seller did not say it was Billiken but it says so on the bottom.
You realize your $15 kit does not have the white metal parts that the original kit had


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## Facto2 (Nov 16, 2010)

Shrinkage... What every man fears.


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## xsavoie (Jun 29, 1999)

I think that vinyl shrinks as it cools down.Now if they would make a resin copy out of the original vinyl kit,resin might just shrink a lot less,if any at all.Also,resin would probably mantain about the same detail.This might be a copy of the copy of the copy.Which means it loses more detail each time it is used as a new mold.


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## Auroranut (Jan 12, 2008)

Facto2 said:


> Great post, Ian. :thumbsup: And excellent pics too. You should post this over at the CH, MC and UMA as well... Actually, you might want to skip UMA.


Good idea John- especially over at CH!!
There appears to be a lot of new members at the moment and the inevitable threads will probably rear their ugly heads....
A new EDUCATIONAL thread like this one might be a way of informing some of the newbies???...

Chris.


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## Scott J (Jun 21, 2000)

Facto2 said:


> Great post, Ian. :thumbsup: And excellent pics too. You should post this over at the CH, MC and UMA as well... Actually, you might want to skip UMA.


I'd skip the UMA and their recaster supporting board all together!! Especially old "ToyRanch" Bobby Beeman!! He is of course on Larry Burbridge's friend list on FB as well.  Great shots Ian. A few years ago at WF in the contest someone entered a Horizon Frankenstein recast. That worst part about it was he put it about a foot away from a real one. The size difference was easily noticed by anyone.

SJ


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## Els (Mar 13, 2011)

Thanks for taking the time to post those pictures. I wish someone would have done this when I was first getting into resin figures a few years ago. I didn't know about recasts back then and bought a couple of the cheap Thai kits off ebay. What pieces of crap, something like this could have saved me some disappointment.
Els


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## razorwyre1 (Jan 28, 2004)

xsavoie said:


> I think that vinyl shrinks as it cools down.Now if they would make a resin copy out of the original vinyl kit,resin might just shrink a lot less,if any at all.Also,resin would probably mantain about the same detail.This might be a copy of the copy of the copy.Which means it loses more detail each time it is used as a new mold.


resin shrinks minutely..like a fraction of a percent... but it does shrink. 
youre right, vinyl shrinks between 5 and 10% smaller than the size of the mold.
thanks to things like mold releases, etc., even molds for resin lose a little detail in comparison to the original model (in this case the term "model" refers to any object being molded, not necessarily a model kit part). as you say, each generation away from the original increases this loss of detail, but there is a slight loss in a first generation when it is compared to the original sculpture.
all these things taken into account, recasts cannot help but be inferior to the original kits.


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## Tim Casey (Dec 4, 2004)

Excellent thread.


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## IanWilkinson (Apr 23, 2010)

Many thanks for the comments guy's!.. to be honest i didn't know why the recast was smaller, the images have not been edited and the two kits are side by side, so you could see the difference. The detail level in the recast is shocking to say the least.. if this thread helps one new figure kit builder from waisting there cash on one of these pieces of rubbish i think we will all be happy!...


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## Disco58 (Apr 10, 2011)

Lookie what I found!
http://modelsmountain.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=79 S'pose it's an original Billiken?:lol::lol::lol::lol: I was poking around in my bookmarks, and I ran across the link for the kits I mentioned earlier that I was so tempted to buy (the ones with Korean instructions). This is one of them. It's a very cool looking piece, and I would love to get one, but not from here. Anyone recognize it? http://modelsmountain.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=20_32&product_id=119 I originally hadn't looked at their 'Frankie' because I wasn't interested. But after reading this this thread I took a quick look at it. I'm thinking that seals the deal for my NOT buying this or any of their other kits I was looking at. Danger Will Robinson, recaster alert!!


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## IanWilkinson (Apr 23, 2010)

Disco 58.. i have an original 'Summons Gardian' kit.. i got it from Japan.. but it was boxed with instructions.. i got it years ago, and it cost well over $100!.. so that site with all its kits are proberly all recasts.. shame becouse the Summon kit is fantastic!










here is mine with a base i made for it...


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## TAY666 (Jan 8, 2000)

razorwyre1 said:


> resin shrinks minutely..like a fraction of a percent... but it does shrink.
> youre right, vinyl shrinks between 5 and 10% smaller than the size of the mold.


And that is why the recast is smaller.
They are making their mold off a kit that is actually smaller than the mold that made it.
And if they are making their mold off another recast, it's going to be even smaller.

Also, I'm sure that thicker vinyl shrinks a little less than thinner vinyl.
And since most recasts are made as cheaply as possible the vinyl is a lot thinner in a recast.
Which will lead to even more shrinkage, as well as more distortion.


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## scooke123 (Apr 11, 2008)

Disco58 said:


> Lookie what I found!
> http://modelsmountain.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=79 S'pose it's an original Billiken?:lol::lol::lol::lol: I was poking around in my bookmarks, and I ran across the link for the kits I mentioned earlier that I was so tempted to buy (the ones with Korean instructions). This is one of them. It's a very cool looking piece, and I would love to get one, but not from here. Anyone recognize it? http://modelsmountain.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=20_32&product_id=119 I originally hadn't looked at their 'Frankie' because I wasn't interested. But after reading this this thread I took a quick look at it. I'm thinking that seals the deal for my NOT buying this or any of their other kits I was looking at. Danger Will Robinson, recaster alert!!


If you go to their home page it says that they are recast kits - NOT even trying to hide it!!! Definately a site to steer clear of!
Steve


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## Disco58 (Apr 10, 2011)

scooke123 said:


> If you go to their home page it says that they are recast kits - NOT even trying to hide it!!! Definitely a site to steer clear of!
> Steve


Interesting--I had never gone to their homepage. Somehow I had originally gone directly to their products page and missed all that. I've already deleted their link from my bookmarks, but I've also posted it in other forums, and sent an email to David Fisher of Amazing Figure Modeler to post when that forum gets back up and running. Hopefully that will at least lessen the amount of people falling into the trap. But, I suppose there will be those who don't care and will buy them anyway, regardless of the quality or the ethics.


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## frankiefreak (Mar 15, 2011)

Thanks so much Ian for these comparison pics. I have purchased 2 recasts of this kit before I knew what I was doing and I can't wait to get an original. I can see the detail that was never there in the copies. As you say, let's not start a diatribe about this but it's good to point this out to novice modelers. I've learned my lesson! Thanks for sharing your talents!

Michael:thumbsup:


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## Dyonisis (Nov 11, 2009)

*IN BEFORE THE LOCK!*



scooke123 said:


> If you go to their home page it says that they are recast kits - NOT even trying to hide it!!! Definately a site to steer clear of!
> Steve


Indeed! This too, is the reason I don't buy from Tailand, Korea, China, The Philipians, Indonesia, etc. 



razorwyre1 said:


> resin shrinks minutely..like a fraction of a percent... but it does shrink.
> youre right, vinyl shrinks between 5 and 10% smaller than the size of the mold.
> thanks to things like mold releases, etc., even molds for resin lose a little detail in comparison to the original model (in this case the term "model" refers to any object being molded, not necessarily a model kit part). as you say, each generation away from the original increases this loss of detail, but there is a slight loss in a first generation when it is compared to the original sculpture.
> all these things taken into account, recasts cannot help but be inferior to the original kits.


Resin doesn't shrink as much, but IT DOES over time distort when making a recast of a recast. They do this because copyright laws don't apply over there, and they can get casting resin overseas from China which is about as moral as they are. They have the same morals as one another (no honour among thieves), so they even recast each others' recasts. This makes shrinkage ever more present when they go from generation to generation of recasts, and don't make new moulds before the original ones they made are no longer good (up to 50). This also makes the details softer, and more distorted just like in the picture. It would take a LOT of recasting in resin to make such a big difference in size - this may not be the case in vinyl as it's a different animal altogether. Most likely this is a recast of many other recasts generations apart, and poor/lack of quality control. 

Although I've never bought one of these, or made casts from this type of resin - I AM aware of all the shenanigans behind the scenes from others who have had a go around with these same people. These vinyl kits are rotocast, and therefore are more subject to being distorted when it's too thin, and the material isn't handled correctly - mixed thoroughly/cured properly, or the right steps/controls followed to ensure a properly made product. There was also a China guitar scam on feebay a while ago following the same poor quality, and illegalities that these recasters are now doing. Since these are obvious recasts, why aren't they being banned from feebay?


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## rkoenn (Dec 18, 2007)

Feebay, how true. They really offer nothing except a person to person service at ridiculous surcharges, I believe they are up to about 9% these days. I very recently sold some new hard drives and had a guy win two and then never pay. Of course I did not send them but eBay did absolutely nothing in my favor. I filed a no payment case and when he didn't yet pay I couldn't even give him a bad rating. Closing the case prevented me from rating him. He had another no payment rating and too boot he got obnoxious when I asked him about it. I talked with Feebay agents and all they said was so sorry. No recompense or anything. I ended up getting $16 less for the two drives two weeks later and eBay still charged me their full amount. They are simply out to bilk their users and really offer nothing but the tagup service between buyer and seller. No guarantees or anything else, simply tuff luck the guy didn't pay you.


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## IanWilkinson (Apr 23, 2010)

I used to sell all the time on Ebay.. its now 10% final value charge.. so if you sell a kit for $200... you only get $180 back!!... its just not worth it..


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## MonsterModelMan (Dec 20, 2000)

Great thread Ian! Fortunately, we have places like here and the CH and other forums that if most people would just ask or read about a given kit...you can avoid making a mistake buying a recast.

But seeing is believing!:thumbsup:

MMM


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## Dyonisis (Nov 11, 2009)

rkoenn said:


> Feebay, how true. They really offer nothing except a person to person service at ridiculous surcharges, I believe they are up to about 9% these days. I very recently sold some new hard drives and had a guy win two and then never pay. Of course I did not send them but eBay did absolutely nothing in my favor. I filed a no payment case and when he didn't yet pay I couldn't even give him a bad rating. Closing the case prevented me from rating him. He had another no payment rating and too boot he got obnoxious when I asked him about it. I talked with Feebay agents and all they said was so sorry. No recompense or anything. I ended up getting $16 less for the two drives two weeks later and eBay still charged me their full amount. They are simply out to bilk their users and really offer nothing but the tagup service between buyer and seller. No guarantees or anything else, simply tuff luck the guy didn't pay you.


 All they're doing is punishing their sellers! I know what you mean, and the feedback scoring is ridiculous now - with more of it than ever!  I had a buyer last year that bought some transformer toys. OK, well he left me negative feedback saying "thanks" - WTF?? I emailed him, and he said that he meant to leave POSITIVE instead. This was when the "revise feedback" option was new. I figure that he just wanted to try in out, and I just happened to be the unfortunate one he did it with. Needless to say, he'll never buy from me again. I STILL have the "revised on" date on my permanent feedback score wich was 100% before then. Some people :freak: !!! Not only that - I've had a score of both bad sellers, and buyers who have been banned, but not before I could leave an unpaid item strike, or negative score for the transaction!! One guy I bought from even came to my house after winning, and gave me a lowball figure ($300.00) after winning it for $850.00! I had one seller banned two days after buying from him, and the item I had was garbage, and I couldn't leave feedback, or make a paypal claim against him. 




IanWilkinson said:


> I used to sell all the time on Ebay.. its now 10% final value charge.. so if you sell a kit for $200... you only get $180 back!!... its just not worth it..


 Tell me about it - I just got raped for another $17.87 AFTER I ALREADY PAID $8.19 in sellers fees for a $172.50 guitar neck! I think I'm done selling on FEEBAY forever!! :beatdeadhorse:


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