KATŌ Yoshiaki -- REDUX: Review

IT . . . HAS. . . ARRIVED!!!!

And it is a beaut! Steve and the team did a superb job of molding and casting!! Kudos all around!!!

For those not familiar with the kit, the sculpture is cast in 4 pieces: head/kabuto; torso; shikoro; and ushirodate.

A couple of items of note:

• The bust is cast in the now-standard grey PUR. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this medium, but it should be noted that it is a bit softer and more "plastic". The reason I mention this is that you might find the crest of the kabuto slightly bent. NOT TO WORRY! My sample's right "wing" was just that, and all it takes to make it good as new is 30-45 seconds under a hair dryer at high heat: resin has memory and it will return to its original shape on its own. A word of caution if you have never done this before, or you are using the hair dryer for the first time: proceed slowly and do not hold the hair dryer too close to the resin. Depending on your dryer, "High" might be too hot--I always use my thumb as a heat sink and a temperature gauge: if it's uncomfort- ably hot on your skin, then it is too hot for the resin. The usual disclaimers apply:         1) Proceed with caution; and 2) If you are relatively new at this, test on a scrap piece of resin first!
• Steve included the original Ft. Duq. refsheet in my sample. I emailed him a revised refsheet when I sent him the master to reflect the most up-to-date information available to me on this helmet. The information contained in the original refsheet is regrettably not correct. Since Blogger does not appear to have a way to attach a Word .doc or a .pdf, here is the link to my posting on planetFigure which contains the revised refsheet as an attachment.

Pics to follow shortly. . .

Augie