Old blowtorch ad charming, scary
Back at Boy Scout camp–which most young men are lucky to have survived–we thought we were pretty intelligent to construct makeshift flamethrowers from camp stove fuel, cans of Off!, and contraband but ubiquitous Bic lighters.
Turns out Craftsman beat us to the pyrotechnic punch, according to that 1949 gasoline blowtorch ad posted on Toolmonger.
The big difference amoung our tools is that the Craftsman model has some, um, “safety features.”
Not only does that machine’s “massive solid bronze burner with a 5-inch opening” have a “blowproof design” and a windshield to guard against its 2200-degree flame, it additionally has a “lead-coated steel bottom.”
Leaded: For your protection.
I think I’ll stick with the Toolmonger reader that owns one of these but has “never had the nerve to fire it up.”
If you had handed me that flamethrower at age 15, though, I probably would have turned it on the first anthill I could find.
More torches:
Learn how to choose and use that gas gun’s contemporary descendants.
And watch how TOH plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey uses a torch to solder a copper pipe.
Original post by Harry Sawyers
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