Are you an "American Handy Boy"?

[AKC]

...Just ran into one of our XO's at the PO, he was weighing his 6yo's Pinewood car. Made me think of mine. A winner at the time. But I digress, what I wanted to ask is;

What thing or activity out of "The American Boy's Handy Book" did you have the most fun with?

I liked the huge kites, built one after the other. With the tradewinds in Hawai'i, it was only natural.

If you aren't familiar with this book, get one. For yourself or the progeny.

 

[orca8589]

Not sure if it's in that book, but we made parachutes. small ones with the little green army toy soldiers as weights, and larger ones with lead fishing weights. Some were 2'x2', and we had to con our older siblings to throw them up for us. Got smart and started making them so we could fling thme high with slingshots. Those were good days. :thumbup:

We did kites too.

I'll look the book up and see what it's about.

~Chris

 

[LMT66]

Snowball warfare!

 

[Qeth]

Not sure if it's in that book, but we made parachutes. small ones with the little green army toy soldiers as weights, and larger ones with lead fishing weights. Some were 2'x2', and we had to con our older siblings to throw them up for us. Got smart and started making them so we could fling thme high with slingshots. Those were good days. :thumbup:
~Chris

The slingshot bit is brilliant

 

[338375]

The Pinewood derby cars were a lot of fun. My sons took second place in the County. Only missed first place by about 1/2 inch

 

[orca8589]

...Just ran into one of our XO's at the PO, he was weighing his 6yo's Pinewood car. Made me think of mine. A winner at the time. But I digress, what I wanted to ask is;

What thing or activity out of "The American Boy's Handy Book" did you have the most fun with?

I liked the huge kites, built one after the other. With the tradewinds in Hawai'i, it was only natural.

If you aren't familiar with this book, get one. For yourself or the progeny.

I checked, and we have The Dangerous Book For Boys. (No parachutes in that one either. ) But, between TDBFB and my son's Scout books, we've been pretty busy. :thumbup: I'll have the Handy Book ordered next paycheck.

My son bridges this April, and he & the other Webelos decided that they can't bridge until after our Pinewood Derby.

The slingshot bit is brilliant

Thanks! I can't take credit for the idea though - another kid thought of it, when we couldn't get his big brother to take the headphones off and come outside. (Pink Floyd. I understand now. You don't interrupt Pink Floyd for nobody.)

~Chris

 

[cj65]

I was quite tactical. We would take drinking straws from the cupboard and pins from mom's pincushion. Then, we would get masking tape and wrap it around the pin, starting at halfway on the pin. We would wrap the tape in a perfect cylinder just so it fit inside the straw. Then with about 1/4 of the tape cylinder sticking out of the straw with the pin as a tip, we would tape the cylinder to the straw. Then, with a fresh supply of thick rubber bands from the mail man, (the ones that were about 1/2 wide) we would fling those straws quite a long distance. Try it, you will be amazed at how fast and far they fly.

There was a neighbor across the street from us and one house up that was usually quite mean. He always harrassed us when we played over the line with a tennis ball in front. We would launch our home made straw missile mortars from behind our tall pfitzer juniper hedge in an arc towards his house and stick our pin straw mortars into his roof. They had a range of at least 100 yds if you mortared them. I do not dare teach my kids that trick. Maybe my grand kids, I am not sure yet. We spent a couple of great summers doing those. He never called us on it, but I am sure somehow he knew who did it. We went around the block on our bikes with binoculars, so we could see if we landed straws on the back side of the roof. This was our way of being stealthy and trying to cover our tracks. If we only had straws on the front side, we could have been fingered for the crime.

I still have a parachute guy on my work bench. It is a Chuck E Cheese one, but I look at and smile and remember some good times. Nice thread.

 

[JUST1MOR]

Thanks! I can't take credit for the idea though - another kid thought of it, when we couldn't get his big brother to take the headphones off and come outside. (Pink Floyd. I understand now. You don't interrupt Pink Floyd for nobody.)~Chris

Amen to the 'Floyd . . . :thumbup:
Be safe.