The Victorian pulley maid airer comes with a much more curved cast iron end that gives you more space to dry thicker items like towels. You get to choose from black, white, pewter, burgundy, blue and green airers. You get a choice of a 10 metre or a 15 metre rope at an additional cost of £3. The Victorian pulley maid comes with a choice of nylon wheels or cast iron wheels. With the pulley maid you get a 5 year guarantee, during which time you can exchange or replace any faulty part of the airer. You can upgrade your standard pulley maid airer to a deluxe version with matching cast iron wheels for a little extra cost.

http://www.castinstyle.co.uk

Yes it is loud, and when I make smoothies early in the morning I worry that I am disturbing the neighbors! The first task with this beast was one my girlfriend suggested: grind up ice cubes to make snow cones. She wanted to see how it compared to her blender. We did a side-by-side comparison, and we used her older blender (an admittedly somewhat wimpy Hamilton Beach cheapo) first, which, after about 30 seconds had done a moderately good job of busting up the ice cubes. We then tested my new Oster, and all I can say is the difference was SO OBVIOUS that she started laughing and had a hard time stopping---the Oster *pulverized* the ice cubes better in about 3 seconds than hers did in 30. It was rather amazing to see, as if the machine is built specifically for this task (which I guess it is--the ultimate "bar blender"). So, loud but powerful and extremely ice-cube unfriendly (from the ice cubes' perspective). I am perplexed by the report here that frozen strawberries damaged one of these monsters. I almost always use frozen strawberries along with other either frozen or fresh fruit and OJ and yogurt, so perhaps that accounts for the difference--the liquid protects the drive? 5 stars except for the noise, so 4. Can't these things be made a little quieter?

This blender is all I needed. Two speeds is plenty and simple for making milkshakes, smoothies, frozen drinks, etc. It is a tad bit loud but mixes quickly, so the loud sound doesn't have time to get obnoxious. I recommend it!

I've only had this product for about 3 weeks, but it has been awesome thus far. I've only used it for smoothies and it hasn't failed me yet. It's easy to use and seems very durable.

We bought this blender just to make fruit smoothies and it works great for that. The only negative thing about it, is that it is loud. But it gets the job done!

Since the only thing we use this blender for is fruit smoothies, it's a bit annoying that the thing can't really handle frozen fruit. The fruit doesn't get down to the bottom and it creates an air pocket. I have to use a wooden spoon to stir every few seconds of blending.

Huge disappointment. I think this would work better if the base was wider and if the blade went in both directions. My parents have the Oster Fusion. We tried the frozen drink button and we got the perfect smoothie. May go ahead and try that one.

Purchased this 1 month ago and would make several smoothies a week. It worked well however I went to make a smoothie today and the drive shaft (made of plastic I come to find out) just snaps. So there is an obvious inconvenience while I go seek out how to go about getting this repaired. Since it's not as simple as getting a replacement part (i.e. a blade or the glass), I'll most likely have to send this off.

Quite disappointed in the quality of this product to say the least. Giving it two stars on the account that when it was working, it worked as expected however it should be more durable.

Update: Amazon is going above and beyond the call of duty by shipping a replacement overnight and this confirmed within an hour after completing their online form. I simply need to return the defective unit within 30 days using a pre-printed shipping label Amazon has provided.


UPDATE 08/19/2008: The shaft broke on the replacement unit as well and only after the 7th or 8th use. This will be going back for a refund. I'll be closing the book on this product and springing for a unit that can handle frozen strawberries better than this one does (I suspect the frozen strawberries are the culprit here.) I hasten to add that the blender I replaced this with, an old 10 speed Kitchen Aid model, did the job without fail (for years) but it went to Goodwill when I bought this one (which I mistakenly believed was an upgrade). So while I can't imagine what it is I'm doing wrong, it's simply not handling what I'm asking of it. And I thought I was being diligent in its use. The general rule of thumb I always used was to not load all the ingredients at once but rather "ease" the ingredients in while blending. Bad luck, bad user, maybe a bit of both. But in the end, the product isn't as advertised, namely, it does not have an all metal drive. That's simply an inaccurate description. The pictures I've added prove this.