FBM Factory break in/robbery

[going_home]

Different batch

I've heard some negative things about FBM as of lately but in the past they have been really good.

The body color being different is because AGD used a type of Aluminum for the slug that doesnt bond with the anno the same as other aluminums and often you will find custom anno bodies looking different than their matching parts.

If you look at both of the Chord bodies and the CCM feednecks I sent,
both bodies and both feednecks are all identical shades of blue.

So seeing the feednecks werent AGD's product there has to be another reason.
Every other blue part is an identical lighter shade of blue.
Both rails, both barrels, both UMF trigger frames, both DW foregrips.

Only thing I can figure is the bodies and feednecks were anodized in a different
batch than the rest of the blue parts.
Its just a major disappointment after spending all that time finding these rare parts.
And try and find a blue Xvalve right now.

[FromTheBack]

If you look at both of the Chord bodies and the CCM feednecks I sent,
both bodies and both feednecks are all identical shades of blue.

So seeing the feednecks werent AGD's product there has to be another reason.
Every other blue part is an identical lighter shade of blue.
Both rails, both barrels, both UMF trigger frames, both DW foregrips.

Only thing I can figure is the bodies and feednecks were anodized in a different
batch than the rest of the blue parts.
Its just a major disappointment after spending all that time finding these rare parts.
And try and find a blue Xvalve right now.

That definately could be the case; I've just heard of this happening in multiple cases and sometimes the bodies do some really weird coloring. Maybe CCM / AGD use the same grade of aluminum? Either way they should have taken this into account, sorry to hear it didnt go as well as you planned. They still look awesome though,

[st6212]

What I find troubling is that some of these anno places aren't quality checking their work.

I mean if I was running an anno business and I saw a difference in the anno with the parts or a bad anno on a part (specks), I would question it and find out why it has turned out like that and do something about fixing it. And if there isn't a solution, then contact the customer and inform them and send them pics to show them what's happening. Customer satisfaction is key, especially when word of mouth reputation is important in the anno business.

Instead what I am reading is some of these anno places are just sending the jobs back to their customer as is without contacting them of any problems, only to have the customer receive them and be shocked and disappointed by the poor result.

The list of reliable and quality anno places seem to be dwindling down either from closing shop, no longer doing PB guns, or bad anno experiences.

I think PB Precision will be where I will turn to, unless anyone has had any bad experiences with them?

[PrecisionPB]

I really, really, REALLY hate to bash a company. So, I'm going to do my best to not let that happen here. We (Me, Rick Holmes... occasionally I have some help on the prep work) run 12 - 15 orders a week. That being said, I am an ENTIRELY paintball anodizer. What I see alot when commercial anodizers come into paintball is a failure to grasp what paintballers expect. You go from anodizing 12,000 fenceposts dust black... a small blurb on a 1/4 sqft part is no big deal to you. That, to my understanding is not the case with FBM.

FBM has always been a paintball only anodizer, and in the day of Krazee, that was some graphic work to be admired. I know now that Krazee is no longer doing the anodizing work (much to his excitement) and has taken a cushy county job. Theres a new guy now, and I believe his name is Drew. I'm not sure if he just does graphics, or what. In any case, the blem rate is up since the departure of Krazee. This could be lack of practice, lack of knowledge of the line, or just plain ol not bein paid enough.

Enough on FBM, and onto the anodizing problem at hand.

Across a batch of how many parts do you have mis-matched colors? Alloy differentials CAN cause color differences, but with a clean electrolyte, good PH on your dyes, and clean nickel sealer this should be a minimal color difference. In the case of VERY high foreign contents, this can be uncorrectable (at which point, I usually powdercoat the bastards black). The short of that is: Its possible its alloy differential, but its more likely a problem with the line/prep/chemistry.

Should this stuff leave the shop without being accounted for? I would say no. At worst, I would think the customer should be called, and be told what is going on. If the parts can't be redone for whatever reason (often times some shops will redo parts until they are correct without telling the customer, I will not redo without permission) then the customer should be offered a refund and a sincere apology. Obviously, sometimes this kind of thing happens. Best case resolution here would be to fix your line and chemistry, and get consistently good results.

All that being said, I will say this about my operation: I have a failure rate of about 7 - 8%, with about 3.5% being undetected failure. That means of the 7 in 100 parts that are borked for whatever reason, 3 of those parts will get out of my shop without me noticing. For the customer that gets that three percent, I have _never_ had a problem resolving the matter to the customers satisfaction. Its obviously my bad, I do within reason whatever makes the customer happy.

In one more recent case, a customer recieved a marker with a thin anodic layer. The color went on the marker great, and I didn't even think to scratch test it. It was soft, after a week or two of use the ano was going to crap. Customer was polite yet upfront about how he felt (this is a MUST... if the customer is going to be a prick about it... ), we are redoing the marker, will reimburse him for all costs of shipping, and are going to add an AKA tattoo to the side of his marker free of charge for the mistake. Short of this: You get a bad ano here (and it isnt a perfect world it MIGHT happen to you), I'm not going to leave you with a crap ano and an empty wallet.


Hope this helps, Styg. I'd be happy to provide what educated insight I can on anodizing here in the future now that I've registered. (even though I hate mags... didn't you guys get the memo? nobody shoots mags anymore :) )

[REDRT]

I've heard some negative things about FBM as of lately but in the past they have been really good.

The body color being different is because AGD used a type of Aluminum for the slug that doesnt bond with the anno the same as other aluminums and often you will find custom anno bodies looking different than their matching parts.

Maybe so. PK selectives told me my karta was difficult to get right. Still they were able to do a perfect color match to the fade of the lowers. The company that has been doing anodizing for 30 years has my vote.

[StygShore]

thankies

Hope this helps, Styg. I'd be happy to provide what educated insight I can on anodizing here in the future now that I've registered. (even though I hate mags... didn't you guys get the memo? nobody shoots mags anymore :) )

Them's fightin words around here Rick

Get to liking mags, you're going to get to anodize my X-Mag in a few weeks here with one of ODD's fancy pain in the arse designs.

Thanks for the info and insight, I just got tired of hearing " its a differnt type of metal" blah blah blah....

Its like all the old parts that were anodized black and tuned purplish after a month of use=Crap anno that made it look good to get it out the door! I think AGD even had to suffer through that with their various anodizers becaue I remember quite a few purplish rails in my day.



Styg

[Chaos_Theory!]

Rick, I should get a referal discount for all the people i get to go to Precision for anodizing. Its Chase (chaosadrnln on AIM). jk about the discount thing lol

[PrecisionPB]

Lots of places use a less expensive dye for "black" which is often a super dark green/brown/purple. You only need half a mil with most dyes to get good color, and half a mil = half the time in tank = half the cost in time.

And with mags, I think its a mutual hate. Mag can be ripping face in one guys hands, get passed to be and turn into a blender with bolt stick. I've been sighted in woods fields with a gun apart in my lap yelling "Bad mag, bad mag!".

Chase - I always hook up return customers. You aren't an exception. Plus, you get free shiz this month with orders. You'll dig your free schwag.

[Chaos_Theory!]

Yeah i was jk, you always give me great prices and i enjoy refering people to your great anodizing service. Cant wait to get my parts in this coming week. Ill prob be sending a trigger frame to you soon as well. Im sure ill love the free stuff.

[StygShore]

breakin it

I believe there are a fewlong term members of AO that are no longer allowed to even touch a mag, only look at them from afar :)

Is there a true BLACK dye?

Looking at Going_Homes pics, could you even speculate what caused the differences in color? It almost looks like the parts were done in different batches to me.



Styg

[PrecisionPB]

I believe there are a fewlong term members of AO that are no longer allowed to even touch a mag, only look at them from afar :)

Is there a true BLACK dye?

Looking at Going_Homes pics, could you even speculate what caused the differences in color? It almost looks like the parts were done in different batches to me.



Styg

Total speculation on my part to say what caused it. List of possibilities include:

Different times in dye tank
Different temps of dye when dying
Poor quality connection to lighter parts (true test would be color durability)

Even across different batches, the color should be the same given same dye/temp/dye time. Theres really no excuse for that kind of color differential. Holy effin crap. You paid HOW much for that ano? A body and $285 cash? My gods, its time to raise my prices I guess. I just quoted that job at slightly over $100.00....


Edited to say: Someone above said blue was the hardest color to anodize... there really isn't a "hard" color, its all the same as far as the dye is concerned. The hardest color to me is actually clear, because the parts have to be prepped perfectly. Lack of color hides no sins.

[Chaos_Theory!]

So in your mind it's ok that people got their stuff stolen because someone copied a frame idea?

Wow, you'll go far in the business world someday.

No, i just dont feel bad for a company that would steal ideas and claim them as their own. What goes around comes around. Besides, its there own damn fault they had their stuff stolen. With all that expensive merchandise and how bad they overcharge for stuff youd think they could at least have some security measures in place.

Precision and other anodizers only prove my point on how bad they overprice their anodizing.

[StygShore]

start diggin

No, i just dont feel bad for a company that would steal ideas and claim them as their own. What goes around comes around. Besides, its there own damn fault they had their stuff stolen. With all that expensive merchandise and how bad they overcharge for stuff youd think they could at least have some security measures in place.

Precision and other anodizers only prove my point on how bad they overprice their anodizing.

Someone get this boy a shovel...he's diggin his own grave :) Lets pretend he didnt even post this response.....


Styg

[StygShore]

lotsa parts

Multiple guns and colors - I think he had 3 full guns and barrel kits, plus some extras done. Soem were blue some were black

right?



Styg

Total speculation on my part to say what caused it. List of possibilities include:

Different times in dye tank
Different temps of dye when dying
Poor quality connection to lighter parts (true test would be color durability)

Even across different batches, the color should be the same given same dye/temp/dye time. Theres really no excuse for that kind of color differential. Holy effin crap. You paid HOW much for that ano? A body and $285 cash? My gods, its time to raise my prices I guess. I just quoted that job at slightly over $100.00....


Edited to say: Someone above said blue was the hardest color to anodize... there really isn't a "hard" color, its all the same as far as the dye is concerned. The hardest color to me is actually clear, because the parts have to be prepped perfectly. Lack of color hides no sins.

[PrecisionPB]

Entire marker pictured. Didn't include anything but that.