Also written 中子. Sometimes known as *ogata 雄型. Inner mold. When a metal statue was made by casting, molten metal was poured into a hollow outer mould, sotogata 外型 or *megata 雌型. The nakago was a solid inner mold with the same shape as the sotogata but slightly smaller, often made from a sand-clay mixture. It was fixed inside the outer mold using pieces of metal *katamochi 型持 or metal pins *kōgai 笄, and the melted metal was poured into the space between the two molds. Using a nakago therefore meant that the statue produced was hollow inside, and the difference in size between the outer mold and the nakago determined the thickness of the walls of the finished work. In the lost-wax technique *rōgata 蝋型, the inner core nakago was made first and then covered with a wax layer over which the outer mold is constructed. The wax layer was melted away and the two molds were used for casting as described above. Sometimes the inner mold was called ogata meaning male mold, or written 中子 nakago meaning child mold, whilst the outer mold was called megata meaning female mold.