Built and reviewed by Ian Scott Horst
Ian is an avid book nooker with over 50 builds to his credit. He has an interest, indeed an obsession, with Asian-themed kits, and moderates the “Wooden Asia” Facebook group, which you are invited to join!
Introduction
It’s not often I use the word “elegant” to describe a Book Nook build, but that’s the best word for this kit. “The Moon Over the Han Palace” is a Tonecheer kit produced in collaboration with National Museum of China Innovative. It takes its inspiration from a famous clay statue from the Han Dynasty of an exuberant dancing drummer, and indeed this character is brought to life front and center of this design. The museum even supplies a postcard of the statue inside the kit for reference. The scene is a palace courtyard from the time of that Dynasty where a host of musicians surround the dancing drummer, all beneath a glowing full moon.
Design & Construction
The kit is nicely printed and laminated on MDF with very little gluing required either by design or necessity. Its 370 pieces are well engineered and fitted. It has a dust cover that is not easily removed, and while it has no touch pad it does have a motion sensor. The battery box is on the bottom. The graphics are excellent, and the design of the tiny pavilions and balconies is clever, always something I look for in these kits. The set boasts one of my favorite features, a lotus-filled pool in front where lilly pads placed well off the ground suggest the presence of deep water.
Lighting & Engineering
One of the features that makes this set stand out is the complex lighting wiring that is incredibly well designed and engineered. The instructions call for two large strands of lights to be detached from their green circuit board so that they can more comfortably be integrated into the builds. There are holes and markings for the wires at every step of the build and so it never becomes tangled and over complicated. The light circuit board (and there are LOTS of lights) is itself embedded in a pavilion. The semi transparent acrylic full moon is backlit in a very clever manner, attached to a second level assembly that also requires temporary detachment from the lighting circuit board. Plenty of room here for lighting anxiety but it’s so well executed and fitted that the end stages come cleanly and neatly together without complication, the wires all neatly grouped together behind the back panel.
Final Thoughts
This set, one of Tonecheer’s vast catalog of sets that seem aimed more at a Chinese audience than a western one, will look great next to the other Han Dynasty kit out there, Han Palace Spring Dawn. It’s generally available from Chinese websites like Kingstora.
Leave a Reply