Old blowtorch ad charming, scary

Back at Boy Scout camp--which most young men are lucky to have survived--we thought we were pretty clever 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 this 1949 gasoline blowtorch ad posted on Toolmonger.

The big difference between our tools is that the Craftsman model has some, um, "safety features."

Not only does this 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 also 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 this 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 this gas gun's modern descendants.

And watch how TOH plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey uses a torch to solder a copper pipe.