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Matthew Keegan asked:




The Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker is unique amongst coffee makers. This coffee maker has no carafe, instead the coffee is self contained within the unit and is released into your cup by pressing on a dispenser. A great idea it is, but Hamilton Beach needs to engineer this product as it failed ten days after we purchased one. Please continue reading for all the details.

Our Braun coffee maker served us well for over six years. Thousands of coffee potfuls later, it failed to work one morning and we knew it was time to shop for a new one. As we strolled the aisles of our local BJ’s we realized that Braun was not a brand that they carried. Nevertheless our attention was drawn to a unique looking product, the Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker, and we soon carried it off and brought it home.

What is so special about this particular product? No carafe! Yes, coffee brews within the main unit and then is released into your cup by pressing on a dispenser, much like the type you find at some coffee stores. The advantage is obvious: you can get coffee with one hand while not worrying that you will break the carafe. An excellent idea!

This particular model holds standard sized coffee filters and has an internal warming tray to keep the coffee warm. Indeed, we felt that the unit kept coffee hotter longer than most units we had owned in the past. For several days we enjoyed hot, fresh brewed coffee and we believed that we made a wise decision in purchasing the product.

Our interest in the product was short-lived, however. One of the oddest features about the unit was the double push of the on/brew button to get the unit started. Much like the double click of your computer’s mouse to open a file, users must do the same thing to the round push button located on the front of the machine. No toggling on/off switch to deal with here! Unfortunately, one recent morning the switch did not work. Sure, the light came on, but coffee was not dispensed. My wife and I redid the process at least a dozen times before we realized that the machine was not going to work. The water was in the unit, the coffee was seated properly in the filter, and the light switch came on. Still, no coffee was brewing.

In summation, the Hamilton Beach Brew Station 12 Cup Coffee Maker is an excellent idea, but the button is a bad idea. It would be better to replace the switch with something that works the first time and everytime thereafter. Fortunately for us we were able to return the item to BJ’s where we received a full cash refund. Hamilton Beach has a great idea, but their engineering leaves something to be desired.

Dean Forster asked:




Portable hair salon stations are designed for the mobile hairdresser in mind. The mobile hairdresser is someone who is on the move, so he or she is need of special equipment that’s lightweight and easy to carry. This is the case with portable hair salon stations.

The goal of a company that manufacturers portable hair salon stations is to to provide a new portable hair salon station which is susceptible of a low cost of manufacture with regard to both materials and labor, and which accordingly is then susceptible of low prices of sale to the consuming public, thereby making such portable hair salon station economically available to the buying public.

Another goal is to is to provide a new portable hair salon station for maintaining a clean work station and for preventing the entanglement of power cords. A portable hair salon station provides multi-sided box-like member having a plurality of slots in an upper/frontal side and further having a plurality of rotatable shafts journaled to and disposed inside the box-like member, and a plurality of spring-loaded spools wound with electrical power cords and being mounted about the shafts.

Every electrical power cord has an adapter outlet plug connected to an exposed end thereof, and is extended and unwindable through a respective slot. There is a plurality of cylindrical containers each having an open top and a closed bottom and an arcuate flange about the top. The containers can be removed and disposed in a selected number of slots for receiving and storing certain hair implements. Besides that, there are two slots each of which is disposed near to a respective slot for an outlet plug and each of which has a latch member slidably disposed therein and engageable to a respective outlet plug. Also, there are a pair of electrical outlet members disposed in a lower front side of the box-like member.

Portable hair salon stations can range from traditional and elegant shampoo bowls at hair styling stations, to revolutionary and ergonomically correct back wash units. Some portable hair salon stations are designed to impress clients with a trendy decor, as well as provide the amenities that top stylist demand, are available many styles and price points.

400-18 QSEp PORTABLE is a portable hair salon station with four casters. It features two full-extension drawers, breadboard pull-out, fully-equipped tip-out tool panel w/ holders for blow dryer, two standard curling irons, one large curling iron, clipper pocket, and six-outlet power strip.