Caldwell Industries
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Caldwell Industries was a supplier of live steam castings, plans and parts.
Daris Nevil wrote:
- Sometime around 1975 I saw an ad in a magazine for Caldwell Industries of Luling Texas. It was an ad for a small open-column steam launch engine. I was intrigued, especially because it was cheap, around $20. I ordered one of the kits. A catalog came along with the kit. I was fascinated by the models in the catalog, especially a set of castings for a 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive in O gauge. I didn't know a thing about castings, machining or building steam engines, but I wanted to do it.
- The open column launch engine was very simple. It consisted of various pieces of cut bar stock (no castings) and some nuts and screws. I showed the kit to my uncle. He was working for a machine shop at the time. He ordered a kit and built it. Then he built a scaled up model 4x the size of the original. Both ran very well on compressed air.