Funny, but looking back, prob most of the toys
we had as kids(boomers) would not pass any
safety test today. Related to the trust parents
had in us just hanging around the town ourselves,
parents figured that we weren't so stupid that we needed gov't intervention to save ourselves.
Ironically, now we have infinitely more violent
video games and song lyrics floating around the
children's cultural mileau, with the ever present
bad girl trio of trouble(Lindsay Lohan, Britney,
and the Hilton airheads), but we feel compelled,
as compensation, to save our kids from a zillion
physical injuries, when the psychic injuries of an abject lapse in family life[when was the last time an entire family has eaten together other than holidays and special occasions?]is a far more dangerous source of discord.
Yeah, those "factories" prob were toxic, and yeah,kids prob sometimes burnt themselves a bit,
like the Kenner ovens, but I don't believe any
major disfigurement took place, far as I know.
Even the science kits woulds be banned, as the chemicals and wires could do unpleasant things
in "untrained" hands. I think of this as a progressive bunkering down of reality in hoseholds, almost like raising "Boy in the Bubble" kids, where all outside influences are
blocked and all uncertainly is contained. Children learn FROM uncertainty, and play is
mostly composed of uncertainty too. While we are
trying to protect our kids from every loose wire
and heated plate, I thank god I grew up before such concern, and had a blast with all the fright
factory-ish mold toys, the boys' version of the easy bake oven for girls.

I believe the one I had was the "Creepy Crawler Thing Maker".

http://www.snowcrest.net/fox/cc.html

I remember at the time, I had a difficult time finding the replacement "goop".

Brings back lots of memories............

I received my Vac-U-Form in the 60's for Christmas. My parents went to midnight mass on Christmas eve leaving us 5 kids home. My brother was probably around 13 or so...imagine someone doing that today ! Before the folks left for church they put all the gifts out under the tree(we always opened gifts on Christmas eve after midnight mass). Well, I layed there in bed exited about Santa coming and couldn't sleep. So I got up and walked out into the living room and started opening up gifts. My older brother came out because he heard the commotion. All of a sudden everyone was up teaing open the gifts. I was so exited about my Vac-U-Form that I immediately tore open the box and started screwing around with it..not reading the instructions of course. As explained in the manual it says that the unit will "smoke" when first turned on, and it did. The whole house stunk. Of course I left the hunk of plastic too long over the heating plate and the plastic sheet slumped and settled on the scorching hot plate and started to burn and smoke. That's around when the folks got home from church ! Man were Mom and Dad mad. Anyway, memories like these from childhood are so endearing that it makes me want to find a Vac-U-Form toy just to smell that styrene plastic smell that it emmitted and to experience the simple fun of childhood. So many things that were done back then are considered unacceptable today..leaving children alone with each other or out in their "world" to play with others or letting them explore with "dangerous" toys. I don't know about you but I think these things prepared us for life in the real world. It was a wonderfule life for me and my brothers and sisters.

I still have my Vac-U-Form in the original box along with some sheets of plastic and a couple of the "add -ons" to make military vehicles. Looking back on it it's amazing we were allowed such devices. The thing really gets hot! But that smell of leaving a sheet of plastic on the form a bit too long... I'll never forget it. And the frantic rush to push the suction plunger down before the plastic cooled too much to make a good mold. Great fun!

I got a Vac-U-Form for Christmas and spent the afternoon melting plastic and perfecting the quick-flip technique that Howie mentioned, above, to get that crisp-edged impression. I really enjoyed making signs with all the little alphabet molds. Everybody in the family got a personalized sign on their birthday that year!

I remember wanting a Vac-U-Form when i was a kid around 1963. Well today 12-26-08 I purchased one on ebay. I hope it works as good as it was described. I also located a kit to refurbish the vacum seal. I will let you know how it opperates. My 12 year old son can't wait.

Somehow this item escaped my childhood? What a shame! The closest I got to something like that was Matels Strange Change machine which I thought was pretty cool! There is nothing better then the smell of burning plastic in the morning! I looked up the SCM on ebay and it fetchs a big price tag!

These, erector sets,chemistry sets gave us the training that moved us into the computer age.The common sense you needed to use theses toys gave many us us the manufacturing skills move us up in this world.

I, too, had a Mattel's Vacuform, for Christmas in 1961. I think that was the same year I received a Mr. Machine that never worked! Anyway, I loved my Vacuform--the smell, the trickery of flipping the part that held the plastic, and then frantically pumping that little knob to suck the molten plastic around whatever mold was being used! Only once did some of the plastic fall into the oven, and like the posters above said, it smoked and made a terrifically bad smell. Alas, I haven't a clue as to what happened to my Vacuform! It's sadly lost to time, but I can still conjure up the memories!

The boy next door had a vac-u-form and it was so cool that I had to have one too ("girl" toys weren't active or complex enough, and they almost all implied that you wanted to become a mother).

It was kind of disappointing because all you could make were thin plastic, pretty-much 2-dimensional things. And when I tried to put 2 halves together, they never fit and looked crappy, thin, and cheap.

Then CREEPY-CRAWLERS happened. OBOY! The vac-u-form was redeemed! The bugs you made on its hot plate were fully 3-dimensional, solid, flexible, and thick. And by mixing plastigoop colors, you could make multicolored bugs! My favorites were the huge ants.

After seeing the '64 world's fair, I was all excited about The Future. And my futuristic vac-u-form was right on! For me, it wasn't "when the revolution comes...", it was "when The Future comes..."

I even told mom that I preferred canned spaghetti to homemade because "it's Futuristic, it's uniform, without lumps, and tastes like plastigoop." It had the same consistency, too.

Mom didn't have the best judgement. (For punishment, she had her boyfriend strip me naked and whip me with his belt while I stood with my hands on my head, even into 9th grade). But in a rare fit of wisdom (and sobriety) she said "Faith, there will come a time, which you keep calling The Future, when I won't be here anymore. Then you'll HAVE to eat canned spaghetti, and you'll wish you had my home-made!" (as she scooped it onto my plate).

No mom around? I can actually be alone, without a dysfunctional family, and without her staring at me telling me I should be ashamed of myself? Wow! I couldn't wait!

But she was right. The Future came, and it had everything I had wished for. But it turns out:
►I WISHED FOR THE WRONG THINGS◄

I have a 3.9 GHz computer of unimaginable power. And I live by myself, unencumbered and alone (in a tent in the woods with stolen electricity). I have no family. I never became a mother. I'm all alone in my Apollo capsule, surrounded by colored lights and technology--exactly as I had hoped and prayed for
(http://tinyurl.com/flkcave).

The MRE spaghetti I eat in here even tastes like plastic.

And I DO indeed miss her homemade spaghetti.

...God, why should I be crying?? I'm autistic, I NEVER cry...