dibbons
Well-Known Member
The most "lab" fun we had was mixing soda and vinegar and food coloring together and watching the test tubes overflow with froth. We also had a GIANT plastic "hypodermic needle" toy that served as a squirt gun.
Christmas toys you'll never see again
- Thread starter fratzog lover
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Getting a couple of tubes of model airplane glue, for putting your models together. 
dibbons
Well-Known Member
I sent my brother into the house to fetch the white Elmer's wood glue one day. He came walking out with the tip of the glue bottle up his nose, smelling the white pasty stuff.
I went as far as making gunpowder and string fuses. Put the gunpowder in an old model car, stick a fuse in the window. Light it and watch plastic burn, smoke and melt. Had a small carbide cannon too. My old man wouldn't let me play with the cannon without him nearby. lol
this one
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Love looking through the post
Stomper 4x4/Rough Riders
Stomper 4x4/Rough Riders
I stole a roll of 1/4" magnesium strip from high school chemistry class. If you insert a piece into a lock keyhole and light the protruding end, it will burn away the guts of the lock. It took a BIC lighter on high (back when they were adjustable) to light it.
wow, you can still buy the stuff! 8 bucks for a ton of fun and shenanigans
Magnesium Ribbon, 25 g, large pack
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grimreaper
Cross Member
Mattel Thing Maker
wow when I was a kid, this kit was so popular
I spilled the plastigoop on the rug. Permanent stain.
I broke a window, with one of these things.
nearly concussed myself, kids head heal quick tho
Dfr360cuda
Diagnosis... Plum Crazy.
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I remember busting open an Etch a Sketch and smearing the silver all over me and my younger brothers skin and faces. My mom freaked out, said it was Mercury. Maybe it was... It sure made us look cool though.
- Marvin -
Well-Known Member
Toys I got in the 60s for Christmas...I still have them:
LOL and you're still alive!
My old man was nice enough to bring me a small bottle of mercury. I don't know what he was thinking...that stuff doesn't clean up easy and gets everywhere.
Interestingly the telescope at the observatory near Cloudcroft NM rides (or rode) on a pool of mercury. They don't bother to mention that in WIki LOL
Cloudcroft Observatory - Wikipedia
Treblig
Well-Known Member
That's why I'm so messed up!!! Where I grew up one of my best friends lived across the street. We were in our early teens (11/12/13) and we basically lived in his Dad's garage almost everyday. The garage was old school dusty/dry dirt floor with wooden planks for the walls...but it was dry and a great place for us to build out plastic model airplanes (corsairs, B-52s, Bi-planes, etc) and military equipment (tanks, artillery weapons, etc). Either way, my friend's Dad had a large mayonnaise jar full mercury (probably 10 lbs). It weighed a ton for us young kids. It was a big jar filled to the top with a siquid metal. We would of course take some Mercury out of the jar and play with it in our hands for hours!! Every now and then we would lift the jar off the 2 X 4 shelf and gaze at the shimmery liquid that weighed much more than it should. One day I took the bottle off the shelf and it slipped out of my hands. It hit the dirt floor and shattered the bottle into a hundred pieces. The Mercury exploded all over the garage into thousands of tiny liquid balls. The floor was made of fine dry dusty dirt and the dirt seemed to absorb the Mercury. We knew we were in trouble so we did out best to collect as much of the Mercury as possible but it was a total waste of time. Mercury is not only heavy (making it sink in the dirt) but also liquid and it seemed to disappear into the fine dirt every time we tried to scoop it out with our hands. The more we dug the deeper the Mercury would go. Out of that really big jar of Mercury we managed to get maybe a spoon full back out of the dirt. Not knowing any better we forgot about the Mercury in the dirt and continued to play in the garage and build our airplanes and stuff. We played in there for years. Now I read on the internet that Mercury vapors are the worst thing to inhale!!!! Since I live in a very hot and humid climate I'm sure that garage was continuously full of Mercury vapors. I had a ton of fun growing up and I did many, many dangerous things.........I imagine that I still have some mercury in my blood.
Can't believe no one has mentioned LEGO!
I had many of the toys mentioned, some of which were handed down from older brothers. Some I got new, including the slot car set with working headlights and glow in the dark guardrails. Had tons of Hot Wheels cars and a few tracks. Always liked getting new plastic model kits, fond memories of the paint and glue aromas, my old man would sometimes freak out over the smell, if he'd only known about all the times me and the kid next door would light puddles of gasoline in the garage, or take full boxes of "ammo" for cap guns and light them off at once. I had a small glass tube of mercury that I used to marvel at for years, no idea what happened to it though. Used to play demolition derby on the basement floor with the plastic model kits that I was tired of, of course I had to glue reinforcements to the things to make battering rams in the hope of making one indestructible, never worked, usually broke an axle off and that would be the end of that one, at least until I got hold of a lighter and proceeded to do my own "bodywork". LOL
I had many of the toys mentioned, some of which were handed down from older brothers. Some I got new, including the slot car set with working headlights and glow in the dark guardrails. Had tons of Hot Wheels cars and a few tracks. Always liked getting new plastic model kits, fond memories of the paint and glue aromas, my old man would sometimes freak out over the smell, if he'd only known about all the times me and the kid next door would light puddles of gasoline in the garage, or take full boxes of "ammo" for cap guns and light them off at once. I had a small glass tube of mercury that I used to marvel at for years, no idea what happened to it though. Used to play demolition derby on the basement floor with the plastic model kits that I was tired of, of course I had to glue reinforcements to the things to make battering rams in the hope of making one indestructible, never worked, usually broke an axle off and that would be the end of that one, at least until I got hold of a lighter and proceeded to do my own "bodywork". LOL
Dfr360cuda
Diagnosis... Plum Crazy.
How about the home made tennis ball cannon ?
4 beer cans... The old 60's or 70's style. Three piece can. Cut the top and bottom off of 3 and tape all 4 together. Put a hole in the bottom one, put some light fluid in, put a tennis ball in, light the hole.
Shoots a tennis ball a hundred feet up.
4 beer cans... The old 60's or 70's style. Three piece can. Cut the top and bottom off of 3 and tape all 4 together. Put a hole in the bottom one, put some light fluid in, put a tennis ball in, light the hole.
Shoots a tennis ball a hundred feet up.
The body cannot get rid of heavy metals. Hope you are doing well.
Even dumber, my bud and I go would go around to tire shops and collect used wheel weights. Then we would melt it down and cast our own .38 bullets. The vapors coming off that melting pot couldn't be healthy. While working on a missile project for good ol' Boeing, I'd wash my hands by opening the tap on a 30-gallon barrel of Freon TF. Cut the grease nicely! and my hands ended up a ghostly unnatural white. Add years of electrical soldering to that and I wonder how I exist.
Without the tennis ball, you'd still get a heck of a bang! In my neighborhood, you'd see small groups of kids, all carrying these cannons around. It was a real fad and I wonder how older residents put up with it. That was near sea level in PA. When I moved to a mile high, I made one for the 4th and it wouldn't work. Due to the lighter fluid recipe being changed or the increased elevation is my guess.
Tinkertoys was always a big hit for me, asked for them many a year.
MileHighDart
Well-Known Member
We had the Creepy Crawlers, and the Clackers, and the Jarts. And my brother and I had motorcycles by ages 10 and 12 I think. Its a wonder we survived
Dfr360cuda
Diagnosis... Plum Crazy.
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Oh yeah.
I had to wait til I moved out to get a dirt bike... A gun... My ear peirced....
MileHighDart
Well-Known Member
We actually got our motorcycles for Christmas, I'm guessing around 1970. Used bikes of course. My bro got the Honda 90 trail bike, not sure of the year, but it had the 2 speed transfer case.
I got a 1965 Honda 65cc street bike. But I put a big knobby on the back cause we only road them off-road anyway.
I had a Honda Z50 when I was around 7 or 8, moved up to a 95cc 2 stroke dirt bike around 13. I went everywhere on that thing, lucky I never got caught. Got the Honda for Christmas, was intended for me and my older brother, the dirt bike I think was a birthday gift, mom hated it.
Treblig
Well-Known Member
Me and my friends would also go around scrounging for used wheel weights but we used them to make fishing weights. We made what was called a "buddy burner" (coffee can with melted wax mixed in with a rolled up piece of cardboard.... it would burn forever!! We would get the wax out of dumpsters behind the milk bottling factories here in town.. some can remember milk cartons sealed with wax on the outside and inside. They would throw away the old used wax and we would use it in our buddy burners to melt the lead. Yes, the lead fumes were very bad for everyone but we didn't know any better. Maybe the lead fumes cancelled out the mercury poisoning??? Makes little difference now since I ended up joining the military and became a Nuclear Weapons Specialist. Ever heard of Plutonium 325 or tritium gas??
We used tons on carbon Tet and other now illegal cleaning fluids back in the 70s!!
Just remembered...MEK!!!
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ah the good ol days!
Nothing even comes close to cleaning up metal for soldering like carbon tet. It was a sad say when I emptied my last can.
Speaking of wax, I worked in a false teeth manufacturing lab. There was a big open vat of a liquid that dissolved the wax from the molds. It was right in the middle of the lab with worker benches and cubicles around it. If you put your head over that vat of liquid and took a few deep breaths, you felt pretty damn good.
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MEK!!!! nice
it wasn't carbon tet I meant, it was what we called 'trike', trichlorofluroethylene I think
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