M aker BACK IN THE DAY: (clockwise) Skil-Craft sent imaginations into space in the 1950s; kids in 1965 still got real chemistry sets with burners and balances; Gilbert’s 1958 girls’ set was a nice gesture but had no chemicals; Lionel-Porter Chemcraft’s beautiful sets ruled the 1960s.

Photography courtesy of Chemical Heritage Foundation (top left, bottom right); by Dustin Fenstermacher (top right, bottom left)

Great Balls of Fire!

Why old chemistry sets were better — and how to make your own today. By Keith Hammond

It’s true: chemistry sets today don’t measure up to the classic kits that once scorched Formica kitchen tables across the nation. But you can still find respectable kits if you know where to look. More importantly, anyone can make their own flaming, fuming, booming DIY chemistry set as good as those from the golden age — or better.

Danger Is My Middle Name

How good were the old sets? They were certainly more exciting, stocked with iodine and nitrates good for making unstable explosives or homemade rocket motors. Chlorine and cyanide compounds could emit deadly gases. A few chemicals turned out to cause cancer.

Kits from the 1920s to the 60s might include radioactive uranium, deadly sodium cyanide, or

pure magnesium foil that burns at 4,000°F, with manuals that told how to mix up gunpowder or melt sand red-hot to blow your own glass test tubes. The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments debuted in 1960, packed with risky experiments. Its 19th-century predecessor, The Boy’s Own Book, had 20-plus pages of chemistry and fireworks recipes.

People tolerated more risk back then, but in exchange, generations of young experimenters were rewarded with deeper discoveries, bigger thrills, and the satisfaction of daring to achieve something important for the future.

Rocketry, nuclear energy, plastics — new sciences that were changing the world — were all highlighted in popular chemistry sets of the mid-20th century. Many of today’s scientists and engineers trace their careers back to the excitement of that first set.

38 Make: Volume 16