Planting the mustache.

This replica includes individual hairs for the menpo (face mask) which must be bundled together then affixed through holes.

I debated a bit about including the facial hair for the menpo or bypassing this step and filling in the holes. I prefer the aesthetic of menpo without facial hair but, I wanted to get a feel for this process and most references I've seen of Masamune's menpo show at least a mustache. I decided to go for it.

Following some recommendations from previous builders, I used 25 hair strands per bundle, about half the number of hairs indicated in the instructions.

Around the midpoint of each bundle, I tied them together with black thread and applied a drop of white glue to the thread and the strands of hair.

I was conservative with the white glue. Too much glue would make the bundle and knot too big to fit through the holes in the menpo.

Bending each bundle in half at the knot, I looped a piece of dental floss around the bend and threaded it into the corresponding hole in the menpo. Using the floss, I pulled the bundle into place.

Even at 25 strands, the fit was tight. Several bundles were extremely tight. For these, I wrapped the floss around a wood skewer using it as a handle to pull the bundle through. A few bundles broke apart in the process.

Once all the bundles were in place, I ran a bead of hot glue inside the menpo along the base of the hair.

After all the hair plugs were in place, I laced the yodare kake (throat guard) to the bottom of the menpo.

That is some very clever work, great skills.

Mark

Amazing work as always great update regards Phil

Looks fantastic.

Metal leafing the maedate (front crest).

The Maedate is the only major hard piece of the armor that was made of plastic. It's a little disappointing considering the amount and quality of metal parts used in this model.

Being plastic, it had the typical plastic metal fleck gold coloring. I decided to metal leaf the maedate to give it more of a metal appearance.

The process I used requires the application of size, an adhesive base for the thin metal foil. I wanted to be able to do both the front and the back of the maedate at the same time. So I built a stand to hold the maedate upright during the process.

I used metal leaf comprised of a copper and zinc alloy. Before applying the size, I sanded the maedate with 1000 grit sandpaper to rough up the surface. Turns out, the gold tone is actually paint. The plastic itself is yellow.

To give the maedate a bit of texture, I used smaller pieces of leafing to create fine joints and creases in the leafing.

Lovely work.

Mark

Looking good, very nice work....

Regards

Alan

Attaching the kusazuri (waist armor).

Deciding to make the kusazuri detachable is my biggest modification to the build so far. Instead of lacing the kusazuri directly to the do (torso armor), I developed a toggle and fastener arrangement to allow the kusazuri sets (11 in all) to be attached and removed.

Primarily, I wanted to make putting the armor on the stand easier. Being able to separate the kusazuri from the do also allows it to be packed individually keeping it from damage when in the storage box.

I had a few ideas of how to create a toggle for the kusazuri. After some testing, I opted for a simple approach to creating the toggles from sections of toothpicks, rounded on each end and painted black. There is one glued to the blue odoshi at the top of each kusazuri set.

Constructing the center set of fasteners was pretty straightforward: two wire cores, two holes needed. The outer closures were different as they needed to accommodate three odoshi. Instead of using a three core wire insulation, I cut 11 extra sets of two-hole fasteners and separated them into two single holes. I then tied the single hole to a double hole closure.

In retrospect, it would have been easier to start with a triple core wire and remove one hole from 11 of them for the center odoshi.

Looking good