vintage injection molding toy

February 19, 2009 4:22 PM

I am looking for information and references to a toy that was available during the 1960s. It was an electrically heated hand powered plastic injection toy.

It came with a number (3?) of molds that would produce army men (about one inch tall) in different poses and parts to construct a jeep and trailer or a cannon (I believe). It came with two different colors of plastic pellets that were placed in the warming area and when it was hot a plunger was pushed down vertically to shoot the plastic into the bold. The molds were then removed, allowed to cool and the parts could me removed. If parts were incompletely molded they could be broken up, remelted and shot again.

Hive mind: Please help find more information about this vintage toy.

posted by Drasher to society & culture (9 comments total)

Was it The Fighting Men?
posted by kuujjuarapik at 4:34 PM on February 19

Had to sign up so I could answer this. Could it be the Kenner's Electric Moldmaster ? That's a picture of mine I dragged out just now. (Yeah, I'm kind of a packrat).
posted by Fortnight Bender at 4:56 PM on February 19 [3 favorites has favorites]

I had the Western World Mattel toy but this sounds like what you had.
posted by klarck at 5:23 PM on February 19

Fortnight Bender's is the one we had; I can still smell its warm plastic fragrance. I only recall one type of plastic pellets, but they came in different colors (red, blue, green and yellow), which you could mix to form brown. The jeep was a one-piece, as I recall; don't recall a cannon.^* Its manufacturer was Kenner; we also had the competition (Mattel's) Thingmaker which wasn't injection, and its plastic output was flexible, translucent and rubbery, whereas the Moldmaster's were stiff, opaque and waxy.

*But with my lead casting set, I had a three-piece mold for a Civil War-era cannon (you had to cast the wheel twice), amazing what they used to let kids play with. And I'd watch TV while sucking on those lead toys, can you imagine?
posted by Rash at 8:30 PM on February 19

Rash is right!
Props to Fortnight Bender for the correct picture.

The Electric Moldmaster is it!

Yes, I recall one type of plastic pellet that came in different colors.
The jeep was one piece but the wheels were separate and metal axles were provided.

Sorry, klarck, the Super Injector is not the right one.
posted by Drasher at 10:26 AM on February 20

Thanks to all!
posted by Drasher at 10:26 AM on February 20

This is another good photo.
posted by Drasher at 10:38 AM on February 20

What about Vac-u-form? I can still remember the smell, vividly.

Was there only one model/brand?

Vac-U-Form
posted by silsurf at 10:08 AM on February 21

silsurf, the picture you reference is not a Vac-U-Form; it is a Strange Change Machine. That toy relies on thermo-memory plastic.

Here is a picture of a Vac-U-Form with more info here. The site shows that there were more than one vac-u-form type toy.
posted by Drasher at 6:20 AM on March 23