You expect correctly!
Before begining allow me to say no words can express how utterly grateful I am for this gracious extention until I can put together my own rig.
I dont have pictures for you to compare and contrast just yet (the digital camera is down, and Otagiri-dono would have been able to see them today had I not goten snowed in at my parents house yesterday night.
)
However, not all is lost, I can still give you and itemized list of modifications/improvements.
Starting with the head and working my way down:
The guruwa, as was posted earlier needed to be padded, so I took some closed cell foam from a camping pad, mesuring at about 3/8" thickness and glued two 4"x1" strips to the front and back, one 1x1 strip to the left side, and one 1x1/2 to the side where it ties together, thus snugging up the fit a little and providing decent padding against a throat shot. (I had my girlfriend throw a couple of thrusts at it with my nagamaki.)
Another item addressed with the guruwa was the ties at the side, a little hard for me to get to, so I used the two holes on either side to make loops with which I could feed a piece of para-cord through and thereby tighten it down further. Again, kicking myself for not having a camera at the moment but the result looked something like this:
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o |} | o
o | {| o
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Where the french brackets are the loops and the cord then ties through the loops.
Moving on the the watagami, Otagiri had originally speculated that the watagami would have to be shorteded to fit me correctly, however I got a bit creative and left those intact. All that I had to do to bring the dou up higher was shorten the lacing both on the wagagami and the lacing on the togles, all in all it brough the dou up another inch with out having to carve into the watagami.
Where the kanagu mawari would have gone was just a little too wide at the point where my shoulders met my armpits and tened to dig in a little more than what was comfortable every time I went into chudan. There was no easy way arround this one so I ended up needing to take out about an eigth of an inch on either side, maybe more, havent actually had a chance to fight in it yet, therefore I dont know if I need to carve a little more out or not. The ridge where the sides meet the munaita had to be lowered a half an inch in order for my arm to even begin to reach the chudan position with any comfort. We shail see if this is enough, I'll post any further modification necesities to this part of the dou after a few combat trials.
The hikiawase on the right side of the dou had been extended with a section of shoelace in order to better fit Otagiri-dono, I on the other hand did not need it, so I simply removed it and set it aside.
The kote were a bit of a trick, the kanmuri ita, ikada, hijigane and shino had all begun to come loose or totally abandon their stiches after the punishment Otagiri-dono had submitted it to before graciously lending it to me. Using the same thread, thank goodness I had some lying arround for leatherworking, I replaced all the missing or loose stitches, making two passes and using a tie off stitch to better anchor the thread. I will replace any stitches that come loose from here on out in the same manner.
In addition to re stitching the plates, the bias tape that was previously used to create the "eyelets" for the himo had begun to come loose. Upon reccomendation from Otagiri I removed this bias tape and replaced it with shoelace and thicker stitches from a sewing machine, hopefully these should hold through combat trials.
A third item with the kote was the fabric, it was coming loose from its bias tape on the underside of the left kote, agian, the sewing machine helped me there, I pulled the seam on a three inch section from the wrist up and re stitched the fabric into the bias tape, as well as made a stitch directly on the fabric for the same length about 1/8" away from the new stitch. The only problem I ran into with this method is that the brown I had was a couple of shades darker so the thread shows a little, fortunately its not overly noticeable. Once again, pictures will be coming, I promise.
The kusazuri had to be brought up a half an inch. Otagiri left the laces untied with this foresight, and I express much gratitude for this because it made my job a lot easier. All ineeded to do was pull the himo up and tie them off. I still haven't cut them because I cant remember if I got the green light on that or not, Otagiri could you please confirm this for me.
Lastly, the suneate, which were not problem at all. The only thing that needed to be done was to replace two stitches on the shino, same method as with the kote and redo a one inch section of seam where the leather meets the fabric at the shin bone, once again, same method and problem as with the kote.
Again, appologies for my lack of pictures, I promise I'll have them within a day or two.
Ryokai
