Well after much eager anticipation and much discussion my Mastino Bush Shirt arrived today. I’ve only worn it out the once but I thought I’d share some pics and my initial impressions with folks so bear in mind this is a review that's in still progress. I have also already spoken to Kev about the issues that I found with the Mastino as well as the improvements that will go to improving it.
When I picked it up from the sorting office my initial thoughts were ‘this is one heavy garment’ so I asked Mark (T1tch) to weigh his swannie that the Mastino is based on. Mark said his swannie weighs in at 3lb 13 ¼ ounces or 1.735kg. The Mastino weighs in at 5lb 9ounces or 2.522kg so it’s the heavier by 1lb 13ounces or .787kg. Now I know the swannie doesn’t have a kangaroo/stacker pocket or poachers pocket but a difference of over 1.5lbs is quite a lot. The thickness of the Dutch army blankets is amazing and you can feel it when wearing the Mastino.
So far I’ve only worn the shirt out once when I took my dogs out for a walk this evening. There was with a sharp wind blowing so I reckon with wind-chill it was about 0 or -1deg. I went out with just a cotton t-shirt on under the Mastino. I could feel the wind through the material and was cool because of it but I was never cold and when the wind dropped I soon warmed up. If it’s really cold and windy you might want to consider wearing a wind proof layer such as a Swedish army snow smock over the top to stop the wind cutting through the Mastino.
The build quality of the shirt is superb. This is one garment that isn’t going to be falling apart or wearing out any time soon. Peachy Peggy has done a grand job with it. Kev told me that due to the thickness of the material at times Peggy had to resort to a pair or needle nose pliers to pull it through the machine as it was sewing!!!
There’s an extra panel inserted under each arm that are there for the larger sized bushcrafter. The stacker pocket is a brilliant bit of kit on the shirt and if you go for a kanga pocket then spend the little extra bit and get the stacker option as well, you won’t regret it. The throat panel is another nice touch. When it’s cold and you want a bit of extra protection it pulls up to cover your lower face when you use the hood. When the hood is down it folds nicely out the way under your throat. Another nice feature is the double cuff tabs and retaining buttons when the tabs aren’t in use when I was only expecting one tab on each arm.
As you can see in the pic there aren’t any buttons or anything for fastening the throat vent. That’s because I asked it to be left so I can do the final finishing there myself with a couple little personal features.
Right… the very few probs I found with the shirt. Please note that my shirt is the first ‘production’ model so some fine tuning is still taking place and Kev has taken on board what I’ve suggested. On my shirt Kev forgot to insert the hood cord so that’s still to be done but I’m ok doing that. The flap for the breast pocket is a little bit small and needs enlarging to it covers the pocket better when items are in the pocket. Also the Velcro on the flap was fitted too high to really grip when the pocket is used. This is an easy fix if the Velcro is turned 90deg and runs down to the bottom edge of the flap.
Breast pocket
The other issue is that the length of the shirt came up longer than expected which means that the Kanga and stacker pockets have ended up a bit lower than planned. As you can see I can put my hands in the pockets but it’s almost at full extension and if I needed to find anything in the kanga pocket I’d be stretching to reach the middle. Again, a very easy fix on future versions by raising the pockets up about 3inches. The last issue I mentioned to Kev was that a wider strip of velcro needs to be used on the stacker pocket flap. Peggy had used some that was about 15mm wide and it felt a bit too lightweight for the job. I think for better securing purposes something like 25mm would be better.
All in all I’m really happy with the shirt and glad I got my name down for one. Kev hasn’t given me a total price yet but it’s going to be a bargain price for the quality of this shirt. I hope that this little review and the pics help folks get a taster of what they’ll be getting. If anyone wants extra pics of any feature give me a shout and I'll sort them out.
When I picked it up from the sorting office my initial thoughts were ‘this is one heavy garment’ so I asked Mark (T1tch) to weigh his swannie that the Mastino is based on. Mark said his swannie weighs in at 3lb 13 ¼ ounces or 1.735kg. The Mastino weighs in at 5lb 9ounces or 2.522kg so it’s the heavier by 1lb 13ounces or .787kg. Now I know the swannie doesn’t have a kangaroo/stacker pocket or poachers pocket but a difference of over 1.5lbs is quite a lot. The thickness of the Dutch army blankets is amazing and you can feel it when wearing the Mastino.
So far I’ve only worn the shirt out once when I took my dogs out for a walk this evening. There was with a sharp wind blowing so I reckon with wind-chill it was about 0 or -1deg. I went out with just a cotton t-shirt on under the Mastino. I could feel the wind through the material and was cool because of it but I was never cold and when the wind dropped I soon warmed up. If it’s really cold and windy you might want to consider wearing a wind proof layer such as a Swedish army snow smock over the top to stop the wind cutting through the Mastino.
The build quality of the shirt is superb. This is one garment that isn’t going to be falling apart or wearing out any time soon. Peachy Peggy has done a grand job with it. Kev told me that due to the thickness of the material at times Peggy had to resort to a pair or needle nose pliers to pull it through the machine as it was sewing!!!
There’s an extra panel inserted under each arm that are there for the larger sized bushcrafter. The stacker pocket is a brilliant bit of kit on the shirt and if you go for a kanga pocket then spend the little extra bit and get the stacker option as well, you won’t regret it. The throat panel is another nice touch. When it’s cold and you want a bit of extra protection it pulls up to cover your lower face when you use the hood. When the hood is down it folds nicely out the way under your throat. Another nice feature is the double cuff tabs and retaining buttons when the tabs aren’t in use when I was only expecting one tab on each arm.As you can see in the pic there aren’t any buttons or anything for fastening the throat vent. That’s because I asked it to be left so I can do the final finishing there myself with a couple little personal features.
Right… the very few probs I found with the shirt. Please note that my shirt is the first ‘production’ model so some fine tuning is still taking place and Kev has taken on board what I’ve suggested. On my shirt Kev forgot to insert the hood cord so that’s still to be done but I’m ok doing that. The flap for the breast pocket is a little bit small and needs enlarging to it covers the pocket better when items are in the pocket. Also the Velcro on the flap was fitted too high to really grip when the pocket is used. This is an easy fix if the Velcro is turned 90deg and runs down to the bottom edge of the flap.
Breast pocket
The other issue is that the length of the shirt came up longer than expected which means that the Kanga and stacker pockets have ended up a bit lower than planned. As you can see I can put my hands in the pockets but it’s almost at full extension and if I needed to find anything in the kanga pocket I’d be stretching to reach the middle. Again, a very easy fix on future versions by raising the pockets up about 3inches. The last issue I mentioned to Kev was that a wider strip of velcro needs to be used on the stacker pocket flap. Peggy had used some that was about 15mm wide and it felt a bit too lightweight for the job. I think for better securing purposes something like 25mm would be better.
All in all I’m really happy with the shirt and glad I got my name down for one. Kev hasn’t given me a total price yet but it’s going to be a bargain price for the quality of this shirt. I hope that this little review and the pics help folks get a taster of what they’ll be getting. If anyone wants extra pics of any feature give me a shout and I'll sort them out.
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