Things we used to do

[ebee]

Securespark`s project on wiring a plug got me thinking.

Those bits of toys we used to make to amuse ourselves don`t seem to prevail anymore.

Besides the joys of making something from ready available items it made use aware of physics.

Nowadays all kids seem to depend upon finger and thumb - Keyboard & keypad for enjoyment.

I mean things like:-
Parachutes from hankies.
Tanks from bobbins, lollisticks and rubber bands.
Match gun using a clothes peg and a rubber band.
Telephones using two tin cans and a length of string.
Paper airplanes.
Water bombs.
Steamboats from a piece of wood four nails and an eggshell.

etc etc

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Match gun using a clothes peg and a rubber band.

It was fun to use those with those matches with very long heads, as they didn't go out when whizzing through the air.

 

[ebee]

You lit `em then fired `em? Oh heck, we only used duds!
Ohh dear,

mind you not for ever so innocent - we later made our own gunpowder , petrol bombs, asbestos sheets exploding on fires - but this was when we were older.

I was talking about the innocent stuff Ban

 

[bernardgreen]

we later made our own gunpowder

Home made fireworks were so much more fun than shop bought ones. And far more dangerous, we did have "guidance" from the school chemistry master which was not to make them but he also gave a lot of safety advice as he knew we would do it anyway.

Private phone lines strung along and across neighbours gardens were not un-common. A local ex-army surplus shop sold all the bits needed and stringing wire in the dead of night along the fences of "non-cooperative" neighbours was an adventure.

 

[radioredcat]

Private phone lines strung along and across neighbours gardens were not un-common. A local ex-army surplus shop sold all the bits needed and stringing wire in the dead of night along the fences of "non-cooperative" neighbours was an adventure.

In our case we strung copper wire across the lamp posts as there were too many driveways in between the fences.

Wiring up our shed for lights and sockets (how that would be scorned on today) oh happy days.

Andy

 

[JohnW2]

In our case we strung copper wire across the lamp posts as there were too many driveways in between the fences.

We even went across a couple of roads by stringing between lamposts, and it was ages before any officialdom noticed!

Wiring up our shed for lights and sockets (how that would be scorned on today) oh happy days.

Ditto. ...but, despite all that current scorn, was there actually any significant number of injuries or deaths due to such activities (in comparison with those due to falling out of trees etc.!) back then? Electrical safety is a funny thing. Although it's so easy for serious harm or death to result from electricity ('just in a split second'), particularly when it is mis-used/abused, the number of serious injuries/deaths always appears to have been incredibly low, even 'back then'.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You lit `em then fired `em?

Yup.

I used to have some models of army field guns in my toy vehicles which had a spring loaded mechanism meant to fire tiny little model shells from out of the barrel. The matches worked well in those too.

Dunno what the problem is - I had enough sense not to fire lit ones indoors.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Home made fireworks were so much more fun than shop bought ones.

I've sometimes thought that would be a fun hobby.

Apparently you need a shed with strong walls and a weak roof.

 

[Symptoms]

Banger guns ... ball bearing bunged-up the stopped end of a two-penny banger, placed in a tube with a block of wood between tube and body, bang!!! - I once 'shot' a brewery delivery driver who was unloading beer from the back of his lorry ... I don't know to this day if it was the banger going off that frightened him or if he was hit by the ball. Anyway, Statute of Limitations.

Harpic rocket cars ... wheeled wooden board with a used Harpic container strapped to it (in the 60s Harpic came in aluminium cantainers). Pack the container with a sugar/ammonium nitrate mix and light with a taper. See the vehicle zoom down the street. Back in the day ammonium nitrate wasn't the gelded muck it is now.

That cotton wrapped copper wire we used all the time for lekky projects like electro-magnet nail guns, Morse-code transceivers, lekky shock machines. You can't seem to get that wire anymore!


101 Things a Boy Could Make or Do ... an essential book of it's day (they even had 100 Things a Girl Could Make or Do, full of sewing and cooking stuff).

About 5 years ago I got a set of Boy Mechanics books from Axminster Tools ... full of stuff we used to do. Oh, and a good buy so maybe something to put on the Chrissy list.

 

[EFLImpudence]

We used to make our own protective gloves so we could rewire plugs.

Sorry.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

 

[crystal ball]

Bits of old linoleum set on fire and used as flaming frisbees

 

[ericmark]

The one I remember was being shown how to make hydrogen at school. Told to use a little acid to help current flow. Didn't have acid at home so used salt. Chlorine gas was the result plus hydrogen. I got mate to light it to see if it burnt with blue flame. Don't know about colour but watched with horror as it went all around his hand. Unhurt don't know how.

As to deaths just one. Guy fell out of a tree. Only one I ever remember in all my school years.

 

[JohnW2]

As to deaths just one. Guy fell out of a tree. Only one I ever remember in all my school years.

There were certainly no deaths or even significant serious injuries amongst contemporaries I knew as a result of the sort of activities we're discussing. Only two deaths whilst I was at school - one mown down by a lorry which mounted pavement whilst he was running to the rugby field and the other died (I would imagine 'avoidably' by today's standards) of appendcitis. The only other significant traumatic injuries (mainly broken bones and head injuries, plus one who got speared by a javellin!) I recall were all sports-related. In passing, neither in childhood/adolescence nor during a good few decades of adulthood have I known anyone who suffered a serious injury due to electricity.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ban-all-sheds]