What kind of dangerous toys did you have?

[scott_vt]

What "dangerous" toys did you have?

Good Mornin Dudley,
Well reading through all the replies so far I had just about every dangerous toy that everyone else had with the exception of the minibike ! I couldnt talk my Pop into that one !

One of my favorite things to do was to go down to the local feed and grain store and get a pound of potassium nitrate. We would mix it with sugar, sulphur and something else, I cant seem to remember and make our own smoke bombs ! One Thanksgiving, I was down in our basement at home and some how my concoction ignited in my mortar and pestle and smoked my parents and grandparents out of the house ! Of course I dont remember having a smile on my face when I did that, or anytime therafter !

I also had the precursor to todays skateboards. Mine had steel wheels, and I took out a brand new pair of jeans and did a heck of a job on my kneecap !

I guess Im probablly the same age as many on here, born in 1951 if that helps any.

I never stayed in the house, allways outside unless it was pouring rain, no video games in my past !

 

[MossRoad]

Anyone have a creepy crawlers set or incredible edibles set? Those things got HOTTT!!!!

Fun, though.

Lawn darts.
Estes model rocket engines... D cell size... you can make ALL your toys go FAST!!!

 

[Heywood Jannockitov]

I had those model stationary steam engines as a kid that used those solid white bars for fuel. I managed to blow one up in my parents garage once when the boiler exploded. Fortunately I didn't have my face over top of it when it went through the ceiling.

 

[tallyho8]

I had forgotten all the fun things we used to do with kitchen matches. The "rich" kids would use them as grenades and throw a whole box at a time and watch them explode. To make it more interesting they would empty the powder out of some firecrackers and put it in the box too.

My homemade bows and arrows were definitely not safe. And the inventor of frisbees probably got the idea from watching us kids playing flying saucer with 78 rpm records.

I had a cox .049 airplane too but the one that tore up my fingers was when I got a Fox 35.

When our firecrackers didn't go off we would break them in half and light the powder and then stomp on them to make them explode. This worked much better with leather shoes than Keds. Parents who think sparklers are safe for kids to play with obviously didn't see the things we used to do with them.

Riding a bicycle over the Huey P Long bridge over the Mississippi River at age 12 probably wasn't the smartest thing to do either. Sure was fast though!

Even balloons weren't safe as we made water bombs out of them or sometimes even filled them with something much worse.

After watching Ben Hur at the movies, some of us thought it was smart to put extra long axles on our bikes and have contests trying to knock each others spokes out.

I'll remember more later.........

 

[dmccarty]

Bicycles that we jumped off a plank at the end of the hill, BB guns, chemistry sets, snowmobiles, mini-bikes,tackle football games in the lot without equipment, the "Evel Knievel" jumping motorcycle (the one that weighed 2-3 pounds, you cranked up the back wheel and let it go) that once took the legs out from under my 4 year old sister, ah...those were the days!!

Wow. I had forgotten about the Evel Kneivel motorcycle. One of my friends had one of those.

I got my first BB gun when I was 5 or six. I had a pocket knife at about 5. I remember cutting my finger for the first time with the knife at that age! I was cutting a plant that I think was a Milk Weed? It oozed white sap. The knife slipped and cut me. I survived.

I had a toy when I was 3-4 that had a hot plate and metal forms. You poured in colored goo into the forms and then heated the forms in the hot plate. There were tweezers to get the hardened goo out of the plates when they were cooked. It made insects and such. Not sure my mom was thinking when she bought that one! Burned my self a few times too. But I survived.

I had a Cox dune buggy as well. Seems like I had a plane that would fly on a string and I was the pivot point.

And I had the clackers. Those things were scary. I think might or a friends cracked in use.

At one point I did have a chemistry set but I was very young. I don't know what happened to it. I wonder if my parents figured out it was dangerous. I do remember it smoking/burning.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Anyone have a creepy crawlers set or incredible edibles set? Those things got HOTTT!!!!

Creepy Crawlers! I think that is what I had! I never tried to eat mine though.....

I did not play with rockets until in my teens and surprisingly we were responsible with those engines. At the time we lived near a closed down Seminary. The place was huge. Looking at Google Earth it is now a huge subdivision. It was a wide open nice place that at one time had been in the country. We used to take our rockets up there and fire away. Lots of open land.

Later,
Dan

 

[SkyPup]

My switchblade accidentally went off in my pants pocket at school in the third grade and stabbed me in the thigh, the school nurse pulled it out and gave it to the principal and I almost got expelled for stabbing myself accidentally with my switchblade knife!!!

 

[JSUnlimited]

Yard darts.

 

[2manyrocks]

My switchblade accidentally went off in my pants pocket at school in the third grade

Who else went bad at an early age?

 

[scott_vt]

My switchblade accidentally went off in my pants pocket at school in the third grade and stabbed me in the thigh!

Good Afternoon Skypup,
Think about the ramifications of that happening now !