CAMA revs up weekend in Kent

KENT — In another sign that winter has formally ended, the Connecticut Antique Machinery Association (CAMA) in Kent hosted its annual Spring Power-Up last weekend, May 6-7, featuring a range of vintage machinery including tractors, tools and steam engines.

Keeping close to the theme of the event, guests were shuttled from the parking area up to the festivities in wagons pulled by tractors dating back to the 1940s.

Enthusiasts could also shop for antique odds and ends at a vendor market, sprawling along the outside of the historic Cream Hill Agricultural School and the Connecticut Museum of Mining and Mineral Science.

The Spring Power-Up is one of CAMA’s two signature events, along with its Fall Festival, slated for Sept. 22-24.

Since its inception almost two decades ago, the Power-Up has grown to showcase not only the Association’s extensive collection of equipment, which the public can find at the Antique Machinery Museum along Route 7, but also machines belonging to local collectors.

Greg, who would only give his first name, was demonstrating a blue 1923 engine that he acquired a little over a year ago.

He’d been coming to shows like CAMA’s since the 1970s, and always admired the machines.

“Eventually, you grow up and you buy one for yourself,” he said.

With a five-horsepower motor, his cast-iron engine would have been used to run a cement mixer in the late 1920s, usually out in a field where there was no electricity.

“Now it’s 100 years later, and the thing fires up like it was made yesterday,” Greg said.

Nearby, Gilbert Goff was taping a “For Sale” sign to a chainsaw. At home, he said, he has a two-horsepower cement-mixing engine like Greg’s, and so he also appreciates the workmanship and aesthetic value of the piece.

“Once the iron bug bites you, that’s it,” he said.

A crowd gathered around a large machine that resembled the engine of a train, spitting out puffs of steam.

Chris Destefano, one of CAMA’s directors, explained that it was a steam traction engine, or “basically a very early tractor” from the mid-1910s.

“Between the era of horse-drawn equipment and the modern internal combustion engine, this was the technology of the day,” he said.

The machine, which belongs to the museum, is among some of its older pieces. It’s one of two operational engines of its era , though the museum also has a few others awaiting.

The visual similarity to a train was no coincidence. It worked like one, too, with a wood-fired boiler. Destefano opened a small door on the back of the engine to reveal a flame burning the chunks of wood he’d loaded in earlier.

“It’s a giant kettle, really,” he said of the boiler. “Fill it with wood, it boils the water, it powers the steam engine.”

The Connecticut Antique Machinery Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through the end of October. Go to www.ctmachinery.com or call 860-927-0050 for more info.