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Reviews (5)
Mar 28, 2018
A Decent Smoke For The Cost
This is the 2nd Muxiang (302BH) pipe purchased within a year (different sellers). Keep in mind, when reading this review, that this pipe cost $17 post paid. The first had a stem to bowl fit that was WAY too tight and needed adjusting. After about 2 months the stem tenon snapped off but, readily fixed with a wood dowl and 2 drill bits. This pipe also has a tight fitting tenon, as well as a loose brass ferrule - easily addressed with a fine file and a bit of CA glue. These smoke a bit hot but, not being $100 briars, a good deal all around.
Jan 03, 2019
Walthers 'Cornerstone' Two Bay Fire Station
Please bear with me, as this is my first review of a Walthers product and I may not get everything covered along with the correct terminology.
Before purchasing this Two Bay Fire Station, quite a few searches were done to try and determine if this kit would include a 'hose drying tower'. While several descriptions stated it would accept a tower and the box says, "Separate Hose Tower', nowhere could I find that the tower is included. "Separate Hose Tower" could mean it needs to be purchased in addition to the kit. However, the tower is indeed included and is shown partially assembled in the enclosed photo.
First impressions, when opening the box: "wow, there are a lot of parts to this kit". This could be intimidating to a first time model builder. Be assured, the included directions are well written, nicely illustrated and not difficult to follow. While inspecting the first plate of parts it appeared to be the walls of the building, but with no details seen (i.e. brick and window detailing). Immediately, I thought, "oh no, these must be defective, since they forgot the details". Then I noticed they were the INNER walls. With some further inspection, it quickly became apparent that this kit is very well designed and when completed, would be quite a sturdy structure. As the parts come molded in 3 colors, with a minimum of applied paint, this will be a very realistic and attractive addition to the layout.
To get an idea of how well all of these parts would fit together, a partial assembly of the Hose Tower was made. With minimal effort to remove the spru nubs (using a small flat file) the parts all fit perfectly. One of several features I liked is the choice of vehicle doors - stable style, or roll-up. The stable style allows for opening and closing. Another is the inner wall design. The included decals are sharp with crisp colors and very fine detail. As an example, the 1950s-60s Civil Defense decals are excellent.
The only design feature I would like to see done differently is how the Hose Tower base is cutout at the corner to only allow positioning at the right front corner of the building. I would have preferred it not had this cutout. This would then permit placement at any of the four roof corners. This is not an obvious problem, until thinking it through. As it is, the hoses would hang directly inside the front door of the building. Were a person to model the interior of the fire house with 1:87 scale '50 ft.' hoses hanging in the tower, I can only imagine someone getting 'conked' in the forehead as they are walking directly into the Fire House from the bright sunlight. Indeed, only a geek, like me, would see this as an issue. Another thing I would like to see is thinner 'glass' for the windows. One millimeter is a bit thick.
In every other aspect, this is an impressive, well designed kit with a lot of molded in details. These are especially noticed in the doors, windows and cornice work. Having looked at, with carefully consideration, several brands and styles of Fire Houses, this kit has proved to be an outstanding buy. The fit, finish and detail are a testiment that the people at Walthers did a lot of work to bring out this model and it is hard to imagine how they did it, especially when considering the price.
Disclaimer: While I live in the Milwaukee metro area (where Walthers is located), other than having purchased several of their 'Cornerstone' line kits, I have no connection with Walthers, including any acquaintance with their employees.
I hope it was worth your time, in reading this review.
M.J. Dombek
Jun 08, 2021
Night Watch by Terence Dickinson; Fourth Edition
With so many color photos, it's a nice coffee table book. The deep sky charts are good, but would be better without all the additional info inserted into these charts and instead placed in the margins. Included star magnitudes on these charts is very helpful and something not often seen in other books.
It was disappointing that there were so few pages on the Moon, compared to the book 'Turn Left At Orion' that has numerous pages and useful charts. Only a little more than 6 pages on the Moon here and much of the page area is taken up with photos that are not readily informative. One inset of a beautiful drawing of craters had no caption giving the the name of the prominant crater depicted and even left out the artist's name. Something I found peculiar is the introduction to the chapter "Moon and Sun" where the author incorrectly writes: "Seventeenth-century Italian scientist Galileo was, so far as we know, the first to use a new invention called the telescope to peek at celestial objects". Well, it is now pretty much common knowledge that Galileo was not the first and at his time this new invention was not called a telescope. While I have not yet read the book from cover to cover, it was this erroneous statement opening the first chapter I did read that got me thinking about how well researched the information may be in the rest of the chapters.
As first mentioned, with so many color photos, this is a nice coffee table book. The problem I have with this is that many of the photos have very little to do with the text, or with what a beginning astronomer will see with their telescope. These beautiful, colorful photos of planets, galaxies and nebulae can be highly misleading to the beginner and raise unreasonable expectations. Many of the photos could have been left out in lieu of more information. Do we really need a photo of a child playing in a sandbox?