When you know your old...

[Ferral]

You used to be able to get those plastic rockets with the metal tips. You put one of those red paper strip caps under the metal tip. Attach the rubber bands to hold it together then throw it in the air and when it came back down made the cap go off when it hit the ground.

Not forgetting computer games used to be on 45 minute per side tapes with multi load systems. Basically once you finished a level it started the tape up and loaded the next. Discs were five and a quarter inch and literally floppy in every sense of the word.

[DDY]

Happy days indeed, now everything is banned in the UK.

[Dareos]

I loved those rockets, and always wanted to throw one off the high rise flats in Glasgow, sadly my folks wouldnt take me up one to throw it off

s'not fair

[Dareos]

not sure if this will work, cant access site from work

[watercooled]

Managed to get my hands on some dry ice pellets once, add a 2l coke bottle and some warm water and...

Well lets just say all the neighbours ran out thinking it was a shotgun or something.
To be fair, it was meant to be a rocket, but our nozzle didn't work as expected...

[mmh]

not sure if this will work, cant access site from work

ahhh, nostalgia... I can literally smell them now!!

[peterb]

Real cap guns had rolls of caps on a paper strip - rolls of 100 and each cap was a tiny amount of gunpowder which made a satisfying bang when hit with the hammer in the gun!

The chemistry of weedkiller and sugar was easy. Sodium Chlorate is an oxidising agent, sugar was a source of carbon (the fuel in the reaction) mix the two (very carefully!) and then detonate!

Inhibitors were added, but it is now difficult to obtain (and there are far more effective weedkillers available )

[Disturbedguy]

Me and mates used to take the caps that come in the 6 shot capacity, take the powder or whatever was in them out, put them into tin foil, pack it tight and find different ways to set them off.

Inside christmas tree lights was a good one.

[Butcher]

You sound rather knowledgable on the subject there Butcher, just how many trees did you blow down?

Me? None, I'm just a chemistry student.

Incidentally the ban is nothing to do with people using it as an explosive - it's banned under the montreal protocol (ozone depletion) and because it's toxic to humans.

[Saracen]

....

Not forgetting computer games used to be on 45 minute per side tapes with multi load systems. Basically once you finished a level it started the tape up and loaded the next. Discs were five and a quarter inch and literally floppy in every sense of the word.

Computer games? You can play games on computers? Aren't computers those multi-million pound things used in air-conditioned rooms by banks and insurance companies?

Kidz today.

[scaryjim]

I miss chemistry sets more than anything ...

This. Wanted to get one for the step son a couple of years ago and gave up after I found out that you basically don't get any chemicals in them any more - utter waste of money.

Used to love my cap guns and rockets, but by far my fave were those little paper twist bangers. You got a box full, unwrapped them all, tiupped all of the contents into one HUGE paper twist, then set that off. Much fun

[Ferral]

I remember getting a cool electronics set from Tandy for Christmas one year. It was in a wood case and had components laid out on thick cardboard, each connection was a small spring. To do the circuit all the springs on the board were actually letter and numbered so in the book with the experiments it would have a letter and a number and you connected it to the next letter / number combination (each letter was a certain area of the layout like relay etc). It was absolutely awesome and came with different length wires to make your connections.

There was a few different sets available and I started with the small one and my parents seen how much I loved it so got me the bigger set. I had the one called 160 in 1 about halfway down the linked page :

http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/Elect...ojectKits.html

[watercooled]

Oh yeah! I had something very similar myself, in fact I think it's still around somewhere. In fact I can probably draw most of my hobbies/interests back to toys I had as a kid.

[[GSV]Trig]

The 6 shot cap ring things came out when I was young, preferred the paper strips as you could roll a few inches with an elastic band and some sellotape and make cap bombs

[melon]

how about the ol' match in the aresol can ?

m

[jim]

Not forgetting computer games used to be on 45 minute per side tapes with multi load systems. Basically once you finished a level it started the tape up and loaded the next. Discs were five and a quarter inch and literally floppy in every sense of the word.

Now I have done that. Playing snooker on a green and black screen is an interesting experience.