The Life and Times of A. C. Gilbert, the Man Who Saved Christmas
Posted on 11/23/2013 8:47:19 AM PST by AdmSmith
The phrase “chemistry set” is embedded in the collective unconscious, but try to actually call one to mind. What does a chemistry set look like? What does it include? What can you do with it? If you’re anything close to being a millennial, you probably have only vague answers to these questions. If you’re a little older, however, you probably remember one of the classic sets that is responsible for our powerful (if nonspecific) connection to the concept of a chemistry set. Chief among these, in many people’s eyes, is the Gilbert Chemistry Set, which inspired untold numbers of young people to study chemistry.
Now a new Kickstarter wants to help adults and children alike recapture an excitement that most of them have never actually known. Research chemist John Kuhns has been making wood-box chemistry sets for years, mostly as gifts and small sales direct to friends and family, but now he wants to scale up the operation and bring the tools of real chemists back to the everyday home.
His Heirloom Chemistry Set is certainly focused on nostalgia more heavily than on affordability; with a box of birch including mahogany inlays, the set is hardly cheap, and is clearly meant to be kept visible within the house. This is half chemistry set, half personal statement.
LMAO!
I had fun with my Gilbert Chemistry Set in the 50s, especially since Dad’s a Chemical Engineer.
Sure, me too, but those were the days...
One would probably get DHS’d for having that set now.
Oh man, the wonderful hours I spent with that set and the ruined bedroom ceiling. I’ve heard Heathkit may be coming back.
Thank the lawyers, first and foremost.
“Better Living Through Chemistry”
I melted elemental sulfur in one of my mom’s silver spoons. The silver sulfide tarnish never came off.
I recall discovering some forgotten highway flares and being very disappointed that disassembling them and throwing the powder in a campfire did not do much.
I never could get saltpeter, but potassium permanganate for the rust filter was a great oxidizer substitute...
The best part of having a chemistry set when I was a kid was mixing stuff at random just to see what would happen.
That’s true experimentation.
Not too long ago at a yard sale I bought a complete 1950's AC Gilbert Chemistry set including microscope, slides, etc. for $3.00.
It looks as if it was opened but never used.
I have been offered $100 for it but am hanging on to it.
I thought all useful laboratory glassware was now treated as a controlled substance due to the meth epidemic??
What could possibly go wrong?
I’m in my la 60s & got a Gilbert chemistry set at about age 10. It had all the chemicals in it to make working gunpowder, not a lot, but enough to make a firecracker big enough to make a tin can jump 10+ feet.
Today’s sets only have tests for acids & bases, sodium bicarbonate to make fizzy water and some other benign changes. Darn lawyers & nanny government have taken out the fun of being a boy child!
“The dream of every red blooded American kid was to discover some chemistry set concoction that would EXPLODE. That was certainly my quest and I threw all the stuff under the kitchen sink into the mix as well. Nothing worked, but burning sulfur poured over model airplanes was pretty neat.”
I never had a chemistry set but I used to go to the drug store and buy everything I needed to make black powder for my rockets,small bombs, and firecrackers.
Now that’s a MUCH better set than the Gilbert that I got when I was 10.
I love this. It brings back some very fond memories ( for me not the folks)
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