The best childhood toy we had was a set of army men lead mold. We would melt down our disfigured army guys and pour the lead into the mold. We'd set them up and plink them with our bb guns. Melt them down and do it again. It wasn't entirely safe... but loads of fun. We also had a wood burning set. A set of wooden disks about the size of a coaster and a soldering iron with different decorative tips. It was an arts crafty toy that we used to customize models and fry ants and basically burn most everything half close to a power source.