I dislike long waits for materials. Especially when I discover my paid in advance order remained listed as "unpaid" for14 days in the website. Adam Beane is on my “caution” list. He is a good sculptor but his product sales have an inventory supply issue. He may not run the store directly, but it is under his name and management. Thanks to PayPal my order is resolved, but I will probably not order soon from him again. There are alternatives.

I have ordered the alternative material. It is called Castilene which is produced by a large company called Chavant. This U.S.A. manufacturer has four distributors listed for Castilene, two in the USA, one in Canada and one in Germany. Many more distributors for its other clay products. Follow the links. It’s nice to see such a broad base of support.

I received an immediate notice of my (paid) order (by email) from the distributor (Sculpture Depot) and almost immediate notice of shipment from UPS. That's what I call great customer service.

Since I am a newbie in the realm of sculpting and working with clay, I have to accept making a few wrong choices. But that is what learning is all about. If every decision I made was always the correct one, life would be extremely boring.

I have always thought of clay from my experience in childhood to present day from my own personal experience with oil based children’s modelling clay to water based self-hardening clay. I have made numerous objects in that 50 or so years. Most have not survived the passage of time. I plan to correct that.

What has also grabbed my attention is that Cx5 and I assume hard Castilene, as well as other clay products can be machined like I do with wax. Many clays contain wax for hardness. Things I didn’t know. Industry has been shaping it using CNC for quite some time as a normal part of modelling new products. As a child I knew car bodies are clay modelled before designs are final.

I have to check out clay from a totally new prospective. Adam Beane's slow delivery is actually beneficial as now I will be able to compare products and the Castilene is about half the price of Cx5. The joke is on Adam Beane...