A part of American history will be up and running at Septemberfest.
A demonstration of antique gasoline engines owned by Brandon Township resident and engineer Ai L. Wood will be featured at Septemberfest behind the Old Mill. Wood is the president of DRC Engineering and has been restoring the old engines as a hobby for the past several years.
‘These early engines have a fantastic amount of technology for the time they were built,? he said. ‘Actually, today we just took that technology developed a century ago and made it better.?
The demonstration will be one cylinder engines including a 1927 Witte, 1912 Sparta,1917 Fairbanks Morse and a Johnson Iron horse engine, and a gas-powered Maytag washing machine engine.
‘There’s a great deal of complexity built into the engines. For example, during the early 1900s casting technology was ahead of machining, so even the smallest part was cast in iron. Consider, too, these engines were designed and built without the use of computer aided design and yet today, more than 100 years later, they are still in operation.?
The gasoline antique engines are low compression and provide very little in regard to operation efficiency. Some can run on gas or kerosene.
‘Many of the engines were used to do farm work such as pumping water for cattle, shelling corn or running a sawmill,? he said. ‘The engines are mounted on small carts so they can be moved to a work location. These engines replaced horses and steam power’before electricity came to the rural areas of America.?