Posted 6 years ago
Toyrebel
(215 items)
Picked up a Mattel Vac U Form. I got one for Christmas(62?) when they first came out(commercials sold me). The box is dated '62 and that jives with when I got, because we lived in a house that Christmas for while before we moved. You see these fairly often in a wide range of condition and accessories present.
What sold me on this one was a reasonable price, vac u former condition and certain accessories present. These are usually missing a lot of molds, etc. What got me is that it has the unopened paint/thinner, the glue(which is always missing), the scribe, paint brush(it's got 2 Mattel on it) and the yellow modeling clay still sealed! It also has all the instructions and the card board backing for the puzzle games and lockets. I haven't seen the clay with any others, I'm amazed it's there. It also has a lot of the plastic sheets. It has the Military Vehicle mold kit also, unfortunately it's missing the tank mold and the box. It's got some olive drab sheets I don't remember coming with the stock set. Maybe they were added to go with the miltary set. They're more sheets than what will fit in the styrofoam holding slot, so this makes sense. This kid barely played with it evidently.
I got a Marx Battleground playset that same Christmas. It only had 4 of the brown hard plastic mines with it, it made a pretty lame mine field for my engineers to sweep. I molded several sheets of the 4 mines and made a decent minefield you could lay out. To me that's a practical toy. All these safety orgs nowadays would go nuts over this thing, I read somewhere the heating plate was around 400°! I got some plastic sheets that are available online to use instead the vintage ones. They don't have the perforations, but after 10 sheets, cursing, using a rubber hammer to perforate the sheets along with a heat gun I got them to work. I made the white racer in the pics.
I'm glad to have one of my favorite toys again and I have some projects to put it to use on. It's great for making duplicate parts and model canopies that are more thinner than the styrene ones in the kits.
Thanks,
Toyrebel
Thomas, sheep skins in our day, we didn't hang on the wall. LOL !!
Looks like a neat and practical toy as you can make your own toys. I had a Creepy Crawlers with the Thing Maker another toy they can't make today.
BB II, Thomas, even though I was not given an official BS degree, many think I am natural at BS.
Thanks Apache, I agree "practical" sums it up nicely. I'm pretty sure the Vacuform and the Creepy Crawlers Oven share the same heating element. I know you could put the Crawler molds on the Vac U Form heater, Mattel sold some kits that had them with the Vac. The Creepy Crawlers were actually potentially more dangerous because you actually removed the hot molds to put in the cooling water tray. But you know what, I got a small burn and learned not to touch the element. It amazes me the warnings they have to put on everyday objects today to keep grown fools from injuring themselves. It's embarrassing to know they lack the common sense of a 9yo of my era.
Still way KooLeeO