An update from Pete--with permission to share

--As many of you know, the secret of “coconut”—on the older Made in Japan putz houses—was finally discovered—and by our own Pete Oehmen
see http://everythingcroton.blogspot.com/20 ... -find.html

We checked in with Pete for an update: in a nutshell, as he has perfected the process of making Coconut he has noticed that more and more colors are POPPING! Oranges, Reds, Greens, Blues and Yellows are as the originals looked. The new Coconut is as silky and fine as a collector could hope for. He’s even doing metallic Silver and Gold now and getting a lot of requests for pastel colors. They're a little dull but then that is the nature of the lighter shades. Right now he’s having trouble keeping up with orders and at what he is charging, he’s losing money but considers this a learning experience and fun—though he is trying to figure out a way to mass produce the raw product—it takes more than a week to make one batch—and some of the time is spent matching colors that the customer requires. Different dyes, different chemicals for different effects. He’s taking meticulous notes and photos for future reference for collectors that want to take this Coconut making to another level. We’ll keep you posted.

Wait till you see this
http://everythingcroton.blogspot.com/20 ... -more.html

Hello ALL. Just wanted to chime in and say that PETE'S COCONUT is the Greatest thing around for these houses since - well SLICED bread! I absolutly LOVE this stuff. Easy to apply (full instructions come with the package) and STUNNING results. Hope he can keep up with the demand as I suspect it is a fairly time consuming proposition to make it. I used the red which is a bit more cherry red than the old (which over time have faded to various shades of red-orange.) I had a tower to replace and used this product on it. I had previously painted an off redish color but not dark at all (the original color paint was more of a dark dull dusty rose pink). And painted a wash of white glue and water over the area to be covered and literally dumped spoonfuls of the coconut over the required areas. because it was so much more cherry red I took some of the thinned white glue and water and applied it over the red coconut on the base and sprinkeled that as well. I defy anyone to be able to tell the difference except it is a brighter red than we usually see. REALLY great stuff. If you haven't tried this yet i HIGHLY recommend it! Pete is working on some other ideas too and we need to watch him closely for more GREAT helps for Putzer's! Tom Hull

What great work, Tom. I second your comments about Pete's coconut. In addition to the restorations I did earlier this year, I just finished two new coconut houses (not yet posted) and am very happy with the coconut. Now I need to investigate the mullion project--sounds very promising.