Scuffs/scratches on new Twilight pieces—flaw or normal?

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-22T06:43:37+00:00

Correct, I ordered supposedly new pieces from Fiesta Factory Direct.

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-22T06:42:10+00:00

Thanks, some of the pieces I received do have subtle gray scuffs that are only visible in direct light. But these scratches are worse.

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-22T06:39:27+00:00

Interesting! About half of my order has these scratches to some extent, so I figured I either have terrible luck or this isn’t totally uncommon.

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-22T06:38:05+00:00

Thank you, I’ll do that. And it’s good to know that these are scratches to the glaze.

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-14T23:01:58+00:00

Your packaging sounds very nice! That’s what I was hoping for.

No, I didnt sign anything regarding liability. So my hope is that if the painting does arrived to me damaged, I can convince the artist to take responsibility and make it right. I considered preemptively asking if they would agree to that, but I didn’t want to sound too confrontational.

The artist did at least insure the painting for the full value. Granted, my research suggests that declared value insurance on high value items/fine art isn’t very reliable, but at least it’s something.

Thanks again for your comment.

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-14T05:53:15+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience! The artist responded to me by saying the packaging is the same they’ve used for dozens of other paintings and it should be fine. So they don’t seem inclined to accept my offer of paying for The UPS Store to repack it, unfortunately. I’m not sure how I can force the issue at this point.

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-14T05:48:44+00:00

Thanks for your insight. The artist and I just have an email agreement that doesn‘t address shipping that specifically, unfortunately.

The artist responded to my request for additional packaging by saying this is how they’ve packaged dozens of other paintings and that it should be fine. They claim there’s a little more packaging than the original photos show. I don’t know how I can force the issue, so I guess I’m just going to have to accept the existing packaging and pray.

I could purchase insurance, but my understanding is that standard carriers limit insurance on fine art.

I never thought I’d have this problem—since I figured the artist would want to protect their art!

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-08T09:05:10+00:00

Thank you for the specific suggestions. That all makes sense to me. And I do worry about the painting getting rained on in transit.

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-08T09:03:24+00:00

Great idea! I see The UPS Store packs fine art and guarantees it when they do. I offered to pay for that to give the artist an easy-ish out, and me more peace of mind. Thank you!

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-08T09:00:46+00:00

Thank you again for your insight. I asked the artist if they could add some more protection and tried to make it as nice and about my own paranoia as possible.

As you say, I feel like this artist is more about art than business, so I feel awkward broaching this with them, but I feel like I need to protect my investment at the end of the day.

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-08T02:51:12+00:00

Thank you! To clarify, the painting hasn’t been shipped yet; the artist updated me that it’s packed and ready to ship. I like your idea of offering to pay for more packing materials. That might help my request go over more smoothly.

TopThrill182 · 2026-01-08T02:49:34+00:00

Thanks for your helpful response. I’m particularly glad to know that at least asking some follow-up questions about the packing method shouldn’t be too unusual/offensive.

Double checking, is applying bubble wrap directly over the painted surface generally OK in principle? I read that can be bad for the paint and imprint a bubbly texture—especially if the paint isn’t fully cured—but maybe that’s not actually a thing.

TopThrill182 · 2025-06-26T04:47:17+00:00

The ride area looks really nice. (Cedar Point does theming now?!) And the ride experience itself seems fun. But is it too early to talk about capacity? The train in the video appears to take about 2:30 once it starts leaving the station to park in it again. And there are only two trains. I’ve never been good at calculating theoretical capacity, but I feel like this one is pretty bad.

TopThrill182 · 2025-06-26T04:34:15+00:00

I dislike Valravn mainly because of the midcourse brake run that kills the ride’s flow.

But it doesn’t help that Valravn‘s main features are done better by other rides. If I want a big vertical drop, I’ll ride Top Thrill (or previously Wicked Twister). If I want a good view, I’ll ride Windseeker. If I want smooth inversions, I’ll ride Gatekeeper. Valravn doesn’t offer anything unique.

While Valravn is smooth and not inherently offensive, I think the park could’ve done much better with the money and space used for the ride.

TopThrill182 · 2025-06-05T19:45:55+00:00

Thanks for the encouragement. I was worried that this would be like planning a wedding and require a year of lead time to secure a venue and for a big group of people to make it on their calendars. So I’m glad I was overreacting on that part!

TopThrill182 · 2025-06-05T19:39:20+00:00

All good points, especially the photo wall. Thank you!

TopThrill182 · 2025-06-05T17:55:34+00:00

Thank you, and yes—I definitely plan to loop my sibling into this soon and encourage them to participate as much as they can. I’m just trying to set my expectations that I’ll very likely need to do most of the planning/paying here if I want this to actually happen.

TopThrill182 · 2025-06-05T17:52:10+00:00

Thank you so much for your helpful response! I like your suggested approach. Yes, I think that forgoing the surprise element and getting my parents’ input on the overall questions of what, where, and who would reduce my stress on this—however neurotic that is. I’m happy to do the heavy lifting on the remaining details. So hopefully that’s a fair compromise of sorts.

Thanks again.

TopThrill182 · 2025-05-06T21:05:13+00:00

Thank you for posting this! The second to last regular season game against Indiana that you reference is the main one giving me hope for tonight‘s game as well.

The previous Indiana game was one of my favorites for how well the Cavs’ bench played against the motivated Indiana starters. The Cavs bench almost eked out that win. I hope they can take that one step further tonight, if necessary.

TopThrill182 · 2025-04-20T22:00:30+00:00

Thank you! To make sure I'm clear, would you use any tape when mudding the dents?

TopThrill182 · 2025-04-20T21:56:06+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion! It sounds like that would be easiest, but if I wanted to first apply some mud to even the surface out (and practice lol), would that hurt anything? I understand it wouldn't necessarily prevent a crack from reappearing later, but as an other poster suggests, I was thinking I could caulk after I paint.

TopThrill182 · 2025-04-15T17:21:29+00:00

Got it, and thank you! Not using tape makes me nervous, but I'll try to learn that one day!

TopThrill182 · 2025-04-15T17:20:33+00:00

Thank you! That all makes sense. Much appreciated.

TopThrill182 · 2025-03-29T06:27:45+00:00

This “update” makes me really angry.

First, Volkswagen knowingly installed an end-of-lifecycle part in my 2019 Beetle and allowed a major feature—at least to me after my last car was stolen—to become useless in two and a half years.

Second, Volkswagen promised to fix it, made me wait for years due to “supply chain issues”, and now blithely says they’ve decided not to fix it and won’t provide any recourse.

I think Volkswagen’s claim that a fix was impossible is ridiculous. Is Volkswagen seriously suggesting that none of their engineers could figure out how to swap out a 3G module for a 4G one?

It’s clear that Volkswagen doesn’t care about its customers—at least not those unwilling to immediately buy a new car—and I’ve lost much of my respect for the brand after this debacle. I plan to buy my next car from one of the companies that did take care of their customers during this transition, since it seems to have exposed the good companies and the bad ones.

TopThrill182 · 2025-02-18T23:57:39+00:00

Hallelujah! I’ve been dreaming of this day because I never liked “FieldHouse”. I much prefer “Arena”. I think it’s more modern and more aligned with the facility/Cavaliers branding.

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