The satisfaction of building. The thrill of learning. The fun of playing. The smell of melted plastic.

Being a parent is not always easy. (Not to be confused with being apparent, which usually is.) You’ll ask yourself profound questions sometimes—questions about life, and duty, and love, and sacrifice. There are not always answers to these questions. But there is a pretty good answer to this one:

How can my son or daughter learn the basic principles of welding without blowing up the garage or burning down the backyard?

Like the suction-cup bow-and-arrow before it, the Discovery Channel Kids Power Plastic Welder takes an activity that’s almost irresistible to children but nonetheless too dangerous for most of them, and gives it training wheels. Its spinning plastic welding rod really does fuse plastic pieces together! But it’s only friction that melts the rod at relatively low temperature, so the chances of a large-scale industrial disaster are pretty slim.

Once welded, the pieces can be snapped apart again, which is convenient if your kid wants to make something else with the kit. (Or if s/he welds the zipper shut on your golf bag or something. Our tests proved it’s excellent for fusing a pen to its cap.) Once they’re all disassembled again, your kid can reconfigure the pieces into a little toy car, jet, or robo-dinosaur! Better yet, mix ‘em up to create custom whatchamajiggers.

Obviously we’ve got an incentive to say so, but we still mean it when we tell you this toy is really fun. Our product tester—who is old enough to be four children of the minimum recommended age for this item—enjoyed it so much we had to literally pry it away from him!

Well, partly that’s because he enjoyed it so much, and partly it’s because he accidentally welded it to the strap of his wristwatch.

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