Product Description

Cast aluminum with distressed verdi finish. Adjustable for all latitudes. 14" overall height, 6.75" base dia. 11" time band, 17" arrow length. Mounts on #B18, #B19, #B24 & #B26 bases.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #222309 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Brand: Rome Industries

Features

• Manufactured to the Highest Quality Available.
• Design is stylish and innovative. Satisfaction Ensured.
• Great Gift Idea.

Customer Reviews

A nice decorative backyard dial.
This is a perfectly nice backyard dial with a few flaws that keep it from being a spectacular timepiece. I enjoy having this dial and I've put it to work in my backyard, where it does a reasonably good job of keeping time to within a couple of minutes of local solar time.

This dial is by nature a fairly accurate timepiece once it is properly leveled, oriented towards true north, and the gnomon correctly set to one's latitude. The actual numerals on the dial (Roman numerals, which are traditional and typical) are a bit too large for the narrow plate (or band) and that can make a fainter shadow rather hard to see. Because dials today tend to be more a matter of decor, the somewhat over sized numerals probably go towards satisfying that decorative function which is more important today.

Of course, dials are no longer really used as timepieces but as ornamental and ceremonial objects; so the flaws hardly detract from this particular dial's primary purpose as a functioning backyard ornament. For really accurate solar timekeeping, there are plenty of more expensive dials and plenty of well written books on how to make sundials that can be had on Amazon.com so serious gnomonists have even more choices if the short comings of this dial are an issue.

I actually do recommend this dial and I think it is a nice one to have in the typical yard. It comes largely disassembled but the directions are pretty easy. I had it together using a flathead screwdriver in only a few minutes.

Nice, but a decoration only
Looks nice in my backyard, however, I put a fair amount of work into setting it up correctly to give accurate time,
then realized that the hour markings were not in fact correct, but simply for decoration. The space between the
hour marks is designed to fit the width of the roman numerals, not to reflect accurate time marks. To get the actual
sun based time, it would be required to add proper hour marks yourself, say on the side or back of the time band.

Nice product, but should say "for decoration only". I also wanted it for decoration, but the fact that it works and
is an ancient scientific instrument is a bonus. I would have preferred one that works correctly.