Chemistry Set

Where can you get a REAL chemistry set like we had in the 60s and earlier?

Probably no where now - too many people would find a way to make drugs with it. Lionel used to sell a lot of stuff for chemistry sets - that was the 60's. Don't know if they do any more.

Big brother has their thumb in everything now. If ASPRIN was a new test drug today it would never get passed! Does toooooooooooo many things for a proper class of use. Headache, anti inflammatory, heart attack, blood pressure, and there are more I can't remember. And you can make it at home!!!! You can also go out and chew on a willow tree. They took away fireworks, cigarettes, Big sodas, good tasting frys, driving a car with the kids climbing all over the place, giving an out of control kid a good wack, You get the drift. The way things are today how did we ever survive back then???

there are kits out there - but I never found anything like what I had as a kid.

I assume it was the fear of lawsuits that did them in (if not actual lawsuits).

Here's one place that has good ones - but there was something about the whole presentation of a chemistry set that got you interested. Stuff like this link is more just a box full of stuff. Not as intriguing to a youngster.
kits

My brother had one. I remember we almost burned the house down with it, it came with a 'bunsen burner'. It had some chemicals you could get into trouble with. For some reason one of the chemicals it had sticks in my mind, was called Phenolphthalein Solution. Don't know if that was harmful or not.

And this was actually the set:

I remember that chemical . I made some
combination that filled the test tube with a
brown carbon like substance , took forever to
clean it out .

Interesting topic. A commentary on this very thing appeared in the Wall Street Journal just a couple of days ago. Worth reading:


How to Raise a Scientist in the Xbox Age
Increase kids? boredom so they?ll start daydreaming. Also, forget about today?s ultrasafe chemistry sets.

By Robert Scherrer
Dec. 14, 2015 7:03 p.m. ET


When I was 12 years old, I nearly blew myself up with my own chemistry set. A blob of sodium silicate had clogged up a test tube, so I heated it over an alcohol lamp, intending to melt it. Instead, the bottom of the test tube exploded, spraying shards of glass all over the basement. Naturally I wasn?t wearing safety goggles?I?d never even heard of them. Later, in another mishap, I almost set the basement (and myself) on fire. I tried to duplicate an experiment from my science encyclopedia, which claimed that a rag soaked in alcohol would burn with such a cool flame that the rag itself would not catch fire. Turns out that isn?t true.

What did I learn from these experiences? Not everything melts when you heat it. Alcohol can set your pants on fire. And don?t do stupid things. (The last of these remains a work in progress.) I?ve compared notes with colleagues in chemistry and nearly all of them had similar childhood near-death experiences, which they relate with various mixtures of pride and embarrassment. But it?s always with a sheepish smile, and all agree that using a chemistry set was a formative experience leading to their scientific careers.

So you can imagine my disappointment when, a decade ago, I set out to buy a chemistry set for my oldest child, only to discover that they had gone the way of the dodo and the cassette tape. Sure, there were pathetic imitations, complete with minute amounts of harmless chemicals. But I could have created a better chemistry set from the liquids in my own refrigerator. What killed the chemistry set? The relentless drive to shield our children from even a whiff of danger.

Yet there is an even more insidious problem now facing young proto-scientists. Arthur C. Clarke once said that ?any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,? and many of our household gadgets now lie firmly in the ?magic? category. When I was younger, my grandfather, who worked for a moving company, would bring home all sorts of discarded mechanical and electronic gizmos. Armed only with a screwdriver and a hammer (and no goggles), we would dissect these marvels to see what made them work. Try taking apart a modern cellphone or a laptop computer. Assuming you can even figure out how to pry it open, the inside is as mysterious and inscrutable as the outside.

Why does this matter? Because the ability to tinker, to take things apart and understand how they function, is one of the key traits of a scientist. It?s no accident that an unusually large number of 20th-century American scientists grew up on farms or ranches, where they had to learn to fix the tractors and planters without outside help. Now most of us don?t even change our own oil.

Modern children are also deprived of another key ingredient that has powered many a young person down the road to a career in science: boredom, and lots of it. When I was growing up, summer was devoid of organized activities. We were released into the suburban wilderness at the end of May and left to our own devices until our parents gathered us up for school in the fall. So what did we do during those endless, empty summer days? We daydreamed, explored our neighborhood and invented games. Daydreaming, exploration and invention happen to be the core of what scientists do. That is largely what I still do for a living.

Yet how can we expect junior scientists to daydream, when they can be playing computer games instead? It isn?t that these games are bad, it?s that they?re far too good. I know this from personal experience: Computer games are crack cocaine for science nerds. Had I been born 30 years later, I would now be lying facedown in a ditch desperately clutching my Xbox. The only thing that saved me was the fact that Pong wasn?t that interesting.

So what should you do for your children to encourage an interest in science? Cut back on their computer games. Schedule some unscheduled time. And don?t waste your money on cookbook ?science kits? from the store. Instead, give your children an old windup alarm clock and a screwdriver, and let them take it apart to see what makes it tick. Just don?t forget to make them wear safety goggles.

Mr. Scherrer is the chairman of the department of physics and astronomy at Vanderbilt University.

Ya, those sets were dangerous. Yes I remember about the brown stuff in the bottom of the test tube like concrete! And you also needed one of these too so you could beat up Mom's wood furniture:

A belly doctor I saw a few years ago during a clinical trial concerning a reflux remedy said the same about aspirin and it would likely be available only by prescription. Thanks to this tidbit of information it is my go-to drug for most anything; and it works. TDF

Forget it!
You'll have to make your own. If you so some searching along various home school avenues there are people that have assembled "chemistry sets" and experiments that are meaningful and relatively safe.

For electronics search for "Snap Circuits" made by Elenco. It has individual components but they mount together with snaps and I think they work better than the old spring type boards.

I like the article posted below and have relatives that save old minor appliances and electronics that I give to the kids to dismantle. I did the same thing when I was a kid.

SODIUM FERROCYANIDE, COPPER SULFATE, & OREGON BALSAM...HEAT, THEN HOLD BUG W/TWEEZERS IN VAPOR, WATCH HIM CROAK...
BE BLESSED, GRATEFUL, PREPARED,

(quoted from post at 12:20:38 12/18/15) My brother had one. I remember we almost burned the house down with it, it came with a 'bunsen burner'. It had some chemicals you could get into trouble with. For some reason one of the chemicals it had sticks in my mind, was called Phenolphthalein Solution. Don't know if that was harmful or not.

Click to expand...

Phenolphthalein is a very commonly used chemical indicator solution. it is clear in the presence of alkali and turns red in the presence of acid so you add it to the solution when testing to see how strong your alkali solution is, which I used to have to do a lot.

You got to be kidding. I bet 3/4 of what was in a set 60 years ago you have to have a license to buy now. I remember the one I had in the 1960's had asbestos in it.

It can be found used. Ebay or craigs list.

I went through 3 or 4 of those sets per year during the 60's and early 70's. Because of those chemistry sets, that is why I became a Chemist.

They had some good stuff in them.

Thank you John. Boy do I ever agree with this one! I have never seen so many spoiled pu------ in my life. Was at a a show a few months ago and a brat was messing with some thing that was pretty expensive. I was maybe three feet away and just said ah ah don't touch. Just nice and quiet and the kid put it down. Next thing I know is the mother Eagle swooooops in and starts giving me a load about admonishing her little pile of c---*(^%^*&*&. Should have straightened her out.

I threw one away recently. Couldn't give it away at garage sale. I bet they aren't sold anymore. If someone might get hurt, then the company that made them gets sued.

"I went through 3 or 4 of those sets per year during the 60's and early 70's."

Oh, is that because you kept blowing them up? LOL
Back in the late 1950's I traded an old Stamp Collection to a neighbor kid for mine. Kept adding to it until I ended up with a complete Analytical Lab. Just use the Lab now for Assaying ores from my Mining Claim. In years past I've worked several jobs as either a Lab Technician or Industrial Chemist.

Doc

Dr. Walt- I'll admit...I've lost my eyebrows a few times, one friend lost a finger, another has a few frags embedded in his thigh, etc. Oh, yeah, we were always catching our clothes on fire, trying to collect Hydrogen from water.

ah yes... the old hydrogen from water ticking time bomb. I'm afraid mine caused my high school chem teacher to set a new land-speed record!

I have had two of these old sets in mint conditon. It takes a while to find a buyer, but they go for about $25. Best thing to do is dump the contents and use the box as a wall mounted first aid cabinet.

I remember my brother and I had a Lionel/Porter chemistry set.
We had a hobby shop downtown that had it all from model airplanes to you name it. Of course I had to buy a Pyrex retort like you see in the old alchemist drawings.

The rest of this is over the top so you may choose to disregard my standing on a soapbox.

Children are overly protected at one area and don't get to make even the simplest of biological and chemical observations other than read about it. How are they to get anything out of life other than to be turned into drones rather than thinkers. One thing you are all talking about is the most important: "memories". Memories of things you did personally. Can you not visualize those events even if they were sometimes "experiments in error".
Note: yes, I substituted error for terror.

Now the memories are of social media, hive mentality, and how many points scored in an Xbox game rather than something you explored yourself. And yet we have Zero Tolerance which means you both get expelled even if you are defending yourself. Administrators now don't sort out the truth, they play spin doctor. This is a poor replacement for common sense.

Common sense at least in this area is something you learn if you survive your junior chemist years and gain knowledge and experience. Louis Pasteur once said more of less "chance favors the prepared mind". So where is the prepared mind?

I feel much of this is the result a few groups of social engineers/politicians who think they know what is best for everyone. Forget what Thomas Jefferson and the "Founding Fathers" thought.

To me there are similar losses with expressions like clockwise, halfpast or quarter till, replacing and dumbing down rather than incorporating.

Heaven forbid you think about this. The "thought police" will be all over you".

Oh and old erector set , Lets see here how may times did i stab myself with the screw driver ??? how many cuts and little nastys did i get in my fingers and hands and have to have MOM dig them out with a needle ?? I SHOULD HAVE SUED THEM for being dangerous toy , and all them small parts i could have swolled them .

(quoted from post at 16:07:08 12/18/15)

(quoted from post at 12:20:38 12/18/15) My brother had one. I remember we almost burned the house down with it, it came with a 'bunsen burner'. It had some chemicals you could get into trouble with. For some reason one of the chemicals it had sticks in my mind, was called Phenolphthalein Solution. Don't know if that was harmful or not.

Click to expand...

Phenolphthalein is a very commonly used chemical indicator solution. it is clear in the presence of alkali and turns red in the presence of acid so you add it to the solution when testing to see how strong your alkali solution is, which I used to have to do a lot.

Click to expand...

I use Phenolphthalein, or "P" as it is called, to check for the amount of CO2 in the Raw Water that comes in from the lake. Works great as an indicator solution.