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Y' know, making one's own things to have games with was always fun. A boy in promary school made me a rubber gun. I had to hide it from Dad never really played with it but was proud to be the only girl with a rubber gun.
posted by
Kabu
on April 8, 2026 at 4:30 PM
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Re: Pat
Well, Pat, in those days, we would fill a tray with sand and tie a thin wire around the metal object we wished to replicate. Press the object into the sand, jerk it out with the wire and fill the depression with the molten lead. It soon became firm and it could be dipped in water to make sure. It sounds awful now. A little later we managed to buy molds of animals and soldiers, not really nice things for little kids to play with
posted by
C_C_T
on April 8, 2026 at 1:07 PM
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Re: Ciel
Funny what one remembers as plain as if one was there. Perhaps we still are.
posted by
C_C_T
on April 8, 2026 at 12:53 PM
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Re: C. C. T.A PS
He sounds about like we were in the war years there was not much to spend one's money on. Perhaps a big carrot for a penny. Or a box of matches 2 pence some boys smoked cut off lengths of a reed growing by the stream. Someone said pitch was chewable we cut some off of a pipe that was being repaired. It tasted faintly of tar I would not recommend it.
posted by
C_C_T
on April 8, 2026 at 12:50 PM
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Re: SAm
Lead was not really a nice thing to handle, but a small business has to cut corners.
posted by
C_C_T
on April 8, 2026 at 12:36 PM
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Re: FS
Yes we had a long toasting fork.
posted by
C_C_T
on April 8, 2026 at 12:35 PM
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Re: Sherri
No, but a cocoa tin held by tongs over the coal fire. I don't remember wearing gloves. One could not rack up the expenses when the product sold for 6 pence.
posted by
C_C_T
on April 8, 2026 at 12:33 PM
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I bet it was a spitfire. Working with that kind of savage heat is not for the meek. I hope you wore heat resistant gloves. 🔥
posted by
Sherri_G
on April 8, 2026 at 8:40 AM
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The toast sounds like a plan.
posted by
FormerStudentIntern
on April 8, 2026 at 7:09 AM
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Oh my! The close was perfect!Â
posted by
sam444
on April 7, 2026 at 7:52 PM
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C. C. T.
Oh my goodness....long ago memories.  My only brother was just four years younger than I and would have now been 84 now.  From the time he was half my size he was melting things over a fire. We lived about a mile or two away from a big dump in those days and he would sneak out and take that to the dump and search for things that would melt and he could make into something else.  He also searched for comic books and then take them around and sell them half price.  He always had something going.
posted by
TAPS.
on April 7, 2026 at 6:37 PM
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Just keep your head on straight and don't confuse your melty stuff with your toast! The guys won't be impressed with a bread spitfire!
posted by
Ciel
on April 7, 2026 at 3:57 PM
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That's quite an artistic challenge, working with molten lead. I have sculpted with clay and made figures out of papier mache but never used a chisel to carve wood or stone, let alone messing with lead. I hope it came out as you'd imagined.
posted by
Pat_B
on April 7, 2026 at 2:16 PM
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