January 16, 2008 - In our last update on the production progress of the Ramathorr (and all of the exclusive variants) action figure, we mentioned that we were going the have our steel molds shipped to a new factory to begin production anew.

The new factory was finally able to take possession of the molds recently and inspect them in preparation for production. During their inspection they've noticed that some of the molds have a small amount of surface rust (pictured above) because the previous factory had left them sitting, un-oiled and uncovered for an extended period of time.

This surface rust is not enough that it will weaken the quality of the detail in the figures, but it is enough that all of the molds will need to be thoroughly cleaned and greased before they can begin running the new batch of figures.

This means that workers will need to attend to the molds with mild solvents, bead blasters, steel wool, and a little elbow grease to get the molds cleaned up enough to be usable.

This also means another unexpected a delay in production. Not much of a delay - probably only about a week or so more, but enough that we're not going to be able to get our product shipped out to us before the factory takes its annual Chinese New Year break (which - if we're not mistaken - is the first two weeks in February), as we'd originally hoped.

It now looks as if we may be able to have the product in our warehouse and be able to begin shipping everything out in mid to late March. That is if nothing else rears its ugly head. Please keep your fingers crossed, bear with us, and we'll update you as often as possible with any further developments.

Now for some good news, we know for sure now that the previous factory made the necessary adjustments to the figural articulation in order to add overall stability to the figures.

If you look closely at the second mold image (shown above) you'll notice that they've welded small detents in all of the leg joints in order to give the figures a sturdy, clicking movement. These detents have also been added to joints in the arms.

We received samples of these joints a few months ago from the original factory, but at the time we weren't sure if it was only done in the samples we received for our approvals, or if they had actually added these to the steel molds themselves. Since we now know they've been added to the steel molds, production of the new, sturdier figures should go smoothly once the new production starts.

For any further updates, please check back here periodically, and keep watching the FANtastic Forums message boards at http://www.FANtasticExclusive.com.