I looved erector sets-you could build all kinds of stuff with them…mine had an electric motor and you could build gear trains up and such. Today the legal industry would probably have them out of business-imagine, a toy that you could plug in to a 110 volt wall socket!
Erector Sets are still being made but run on DC, or 110v AC with an adpater.
This biggest danger from a slip n’ slide in my family was from my Dad when he saw what it did to the lawn.
And I got one of those water rockets at my birthday in 82-83. I can imagine the amazing potential for injury…and FUN!
The talk of guns reminded me: I had a gun, which I can’t remember clearly, that came with realistic looking bullets. Each bullet was a plastic nose cone that you would fit into a spring-loaded metal cartridge–so the spring replaced gunpowder, essentially. Those plastic bullets would fire out with a lot of force.
I also had a pretty cool plastic gun that shot tiny, hard, spinning disks which could be loaded into the spring cartridge (it was supposed to be like a Star Trek phaser, I think, but looked nothing like it).
And until now I’d forgotten about all the dart guns: unlike the Nerf ones these days, the old ones could hurt. My brother would have his friends over for a dart gun battle in our basement–a lot of glassware got smashed from this activity.
Who needed Mattel? We manufactured our own danger. How many built Evel Kneivel-inspired ramps for their bikes? (I see a lot of hands raised out there.) Just a couple of stakes in the ground and a piece of plywood did the trick in my yard, launching me high into the air and…right…at…that…TREEEEEEEEE!
(Well, who knew I would get that kind of distance?)
We used cinder blocks and boards.
I just got my brand new, razor sharp Destroyer this past summer, and I was teeing off from a box that was just slightly behind a higher ridge. My wife went to spot for me, and yeah. I nailed her in the back of the leg with a drive with all my power behind it from about 20 feet. Blood was shed. I was cussed something fierce.
We used to make our own bazookas. It goes like this:
Get several tin cans of standard size. I seem to remember that green bean cans were perfect.
Cut the tops and bottoms out of all of them except one.
Duct tape them all together tightly, so that you have a tube with one open end.
Make sure a tennis ball (or a baseball, if you have slightly larger cans, and want to inflict more damage) can fit into the open end smoothly, but somewhat snugly.
Take an old fashioned church-key can opener, and punch out a small notch in the can with one intact bottom.
Shove projectile in one end.
Pour lighter fluid in the other end (through the notch).
To fire, wait for lots of fumes to develop, then touch a lit match to the notch.
KABOOM!
Deploy in two-man bazooka teams to wreak mayhem.
Ah, me. Good times.
“The talk of guns reminded me: I had a gun, which I can’t remember clearly, that came with realistic looking bullets. Each bullet was a plastic nose cone that you would fit into a spring-loaded metal cartridge–so the spring replaced gunpowder, essentially. Those plastic bullets would fire out with a lot of force.”
Those were Mattel Shootin’ Shells. Little grey plastic bullets that fit into a real metal cartridge and fit into a real metal six-shooter revolver.
They also made special caps that fit on the cartridges, called Greenie Stickem Caps. Little green dot caps that came on a sheet of wax paper, and you would pull them off and stick them onto the back of the shell. You got a cap explosion AND a real projectile coming out of the barrel of the gun. Didn’t take too long before all the bullets were lost in the grass, but fun as hell while they lasted.
The Stickem Caps were fun also. Remember the chair/desk combinations we had in grade school and junior high? They had little metal feet on the bottom that contacted the floor. Take a cap and stick it on the bottom of the feet, set the chair down carefully, and a minute later somebody would come and plop down in the chair, setting off the cap. Lots-O-fun!!
For some reason, that reminds me of something that I believe was called “cigarette loads”. Little splinter-like objects that you jammed into the tobacco end of a cigarette and replaced in a pack. When the cigarette was lit, it exploded in a comical fashion. My father was a smoker, and he was not happy that I discovered those. He never knew when a cigarette he was lighting was going to pop. I laid off after he lit one while driving and almost had a wreck!
Which also reminds me of a certain type of fireworks you could buy that, instead of being lit with a match, had two wires, each one to be connected to a spark plug in an engine. When a driver turned the ignition key to start the car, it set it off. Basically a bottle rocket tethered to the engine, it would scream and whistle and smoke and finally pop.
Why, yes. Me poor father probably DID wish he had practiced more birth control. Why do you ask? 
Mattel had a good line of historical toys for young children, but the “Marie Antoinette Playtime Guillotine And Cake Oven” ran into problems and had to be recalled.
hardcore, Icerigger. I only got up to three at a time. I, too, had to improvise my danderous fun.
Aresol and lighter, check.
Endust made the prettiest flames, blue with bright yellow sparks, but Carburator (sp?) cleaner / start up helper could fill a garage with a fireball.
Shooting friends with BB guns, check.
But our most dangerous fun, as kids in the late 70’s, was the bike ramp.
Set up Plywood and bricks in the asphalt street, then ride at it and off it as fast as you dare. Broke my leg that way, once.
The most dangerous actual toy I had was the Battelstar Galactica Viper, that actually fired the darts. No one died before we lost the missiles. We shot them at each other, but we didn’t deep throat the spaceship, or fire them into each others open mouths.
I’m posting as I read the thread again.
Stretch Armstrong, check. Ask me how I know that a Stretch Armstrong can take a .22 long from 6 ft. away. The bullet just drops off his gut, more or less intact.
ETA Airplane glue, and abusing models, check. Double points for making realistic battle damage on the WWII era aircraft with a wood burning set? Or was it my dad’s soldering iron? Both, probably.
A cousin of mine went this route one better, IMHO. After separating (most of) the shot from the powder of the shotgun shell, he duct taped a marble (swirly blue boulder, IIRC) to the primer end. Thrown in the proper parabola (took us a few tries), it comes down and makes a satisfying 'BANG".
Cox Planes, oh my yes. I had the Stuka, my friend had the F-16 looking one. We used his to re-create the ‘Flying Wing’ scene from ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ with Grasshoppers for the bald mechanic.
Hijack Alert
what’s the statute of limitations on small animal abuse?
Funniest model rocket story, (last one, really) my friends little brother got into rocketry with us. One time, he go to the coolest new rocket first ‘The Bat’. So, we couldn’t buy that one without being ‘copycats’. Burned us bad. So, he spends forever making it. Did a really good job, and I think we even told him so. He had to spend some favors to get us to agree to use our launcher. So, the big day, he’s making all sorts of elaborate preparations. We had gotten so blase about our own, we didn’t even countdown. Just 'Clear? Launch! pauseWHOOSH
But my friend’s brother starts counting down from 100, calling out bogus instructions about LOX tanks, etc. every couple numbers, etc. Big moment, he presses the button.
BANG defective engine shreds the Bat like a trick cigar. The only time we had one of those in hundreds of launches.
Good thing it was only a B-4(7), not a D-10.
The much less dangerous form I owned was a plastic rocket-looking thing which had a metal spring and hammer in the center. You placed a cap under the hammer, then threw the “rocket” in an arc. When it struck the front walkway on its metal nose, the cap would explode.
Reminds me of all the plastic paratroopers with parachutes that I threw into the air–not dangerous, but a fixture.
I had a one that was a plastic gun that looked real and it had brass colored plastic cartridges with silver plastic tips. A spring was in each of the cartridges and you put the silver loads back on the cartridge. There was no caps with this model. The spring in the cartridge shot the bullet out.
The gear box on those old erector set motors was full of exposed turning gears, and the motor was really powerful. The gears could mash you finger good enough to lift the motor off the floor.
There may have been different models. The gun I had was all metal, except for the grips. The cartridge was yellow metal, but I think it was steel, not brass. My dad used one for years to punch out bolt holes when making gaskets for the car or lawnmower.
It didn’t require the caps to shoot. It worked just off the spring action in the cartridge and the momentum of the hammer, but the caps were good for effect and noise!
The motor for the erector set I had also had exposed gears. It had a moveable gear and shaft in it so you could pop the drive into neutral or reverse.
Wow. It’s funny, how after 40+ years, I remember these toys like it was yesterday, but I don’t remember everything that happened yesterday.
Ever played frisbee catch with one of those, with the members on opposite sides of a football field? Owwwww. My hands still remember that experience.
I too had a kid size bow and arrow. The suction cups came right off.
Then there is the hula hoop with a nail in it. It was a" navel destroyer."