Homemade Toys
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With no television or electronic games to keep us busy in the early 1950s, we sometimes made our own toys to keep us entertained. Here are just a few of them.
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Homemade Toys
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The Match Rocket
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I had hours of fun with a box of kitchen matches and old wad of aluminum foil and a paper clip. You could bend one side of the paper clip down at a 45 degree angle and it made a perfect launcher for the match rocket. You take a small piece of the aluminum foil and wrap it tightly around the head of the rocket match, then lay it on the paper clip launcher at a 45 degree angle.
The match rocket on the launch count down.
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You then lit another match and held it under the match with foil on the head. In a few seconds, the rocket match would ignite under the foil and the combustion gases rushing out the back of the foil would propel the rocket fifteen to twenty feet. We had contests where we wagered marbles for the longest distance the rocket traveled. This game should always be done out doors in an area in which accidental fires can not be started such as a tennis court.
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The Thread Spool Tractor
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I probably made 30 or 40 spool tractors over the years while I was a kid. My Mom always saved her wooden thread spools for me because she knew I loved to make and play with the spool tractors. I saved the rubber bands off of our newspaper for the motors to drive the tractors and I saved my old pencil stubs for the 1/4 inch dowels required. My Dads tool box was full of old steel washers so I had all the materials I needed at home. I cut notches in the edge of the spool to serve as tires. The diagram below shows how they were put together. They were very simple and provided hours of fun for me. I had to soap the washer to reduce friction and make it run faster. The tractor would run up an incline or on the carpet. You just had to wind the rubber band occasionally. No batteries required.
The pieces of the spool tractor and how they fit together
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The 2 By 6 Skate Board
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My sister loved to roller skate on the side walks in our neighborhood. When she outgrew the skates, I retrieved them and salvaged the ball bearing wheels off of the skates and mounted them on a 2 by 6 board about 2 feet long and with very little effort, I had my own homemade skate board.
The 2 x 6 homemade skateboard made for hours of racing fun.
Many of the other kids in the neighborhood made their own versions of the skate board, and we would find a slope and race to see whose board was the fastest. We would sit on them with our feet up while leaning back while riding down the slope.
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Racing the homemade skateboards down the slope leaning back with elevated feet. What fun.
The Newspaper Kite
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I made many home made kites out of newspapers. I used 3/8 inch diameter Willow tree limbs for the cross members. I would tie them together with the horizontal member 2/3 of the way up the vertical member, then bow the horizontal member by tying a string to each end to pull the desired bow in the member. I then ran heavy twine between the ends of all the members to make a frame to mount the newspaper on. I used a two ply newspaper for the body of the kite and shaped it to fit the frame with a one inch over lap for the twine frame and taped the newspaper in place around the twine. For the last step, I added a thin tail made out of my Moms old rags. I flew those kites for hours and hours at the park behind our house. They usually lasted a week or so of heavy flying before I had to build another one.
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The homemade newspaper kite provided me with many hours of entertainment.
Reed Whistle
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i often made made homemade whistles out of reeds that grew wild in the moist areas of the park by our house. I would cut a 1/2 inch diameter reed just below one of the reed joints so the end would be blocked and then cut it to about 6 inches length with the other end open. I would move in about 1 inch from the open end and make a saw cut straight down about 1/3 of the way through the reed. Then I would take my pocket knife and move 3/4 inch behind the saw cut and whittle a notch in the top of the reed. Next I would find small piece of wood and whittle a round insert that fit snugly in the open end of the reed. I would then cut a flat side off of the plug whittling off about 1/4 inch and the slip it in place such that the flat side was on top protruding about 1/8 inch into the notch. And then try the whistle. By moving the plug in or out, you could adjust to the whistle tone you preferred. The whistle made a very loud shrill sound that would drive parents crazy.
The reed whistle was fun to play with and easy to make and you could do some serious agitating with it.
Thanks for reading Homemade Toys,
Bill