The Vac-U-Form was the 3D printer of its day
The new millennium has seen the advent of 3D printers, which finally (though still for a good chunk of money) give average shmoes a Star-Trek-like power to create something from nothing in their own home. Like, well, guns. Set your phasers to kill, as it were. So maybe they’re not the best thing in the world. Lest we forget, the Vac-U-Form brought a similar godlike power of creation to 1960s youth.
How did Vac-U-Form work? Hot plates, molds, and the sucking/forming power of a vacuum produced fairly well-shaped plastic toys, making it the male — or unisex — version of the Easy Bake/Curl/Care trilogy of girl stuff. As this brief article from a few years ago points out, the hot plate part would surely run afoul of the more modern nanny state — can’t have kids exposed to heat, after all. (Oh, for the days when children could amuse themselves with rusty nails and bags of broken glass. Damn you, Mayor Bloombergs of the world.)
You couldn’t Vac-U-Form yourself a workable gun though. Let’s hear it for progress.
Jared
blog into mystery 
It’s true some of those toys had a great potential for grievious bodily harm, but my sister was only allowed to use her easy-bake oven when my mother was watching her. The real danger came from trying to eat what she baked in that thing, which tasted even worse than the play-doh I was secretly eating.
We had one of these ! Dad bought it at the flea market circa 1976, long after the in-store supply of tiny colorful plastic sheets had dried up, so the stack that came with it was pure gold ! Back in those days if you burned yourself you got told to watch out. I bet it’s still in the attic somewhere along with the Dark Shadows board game.