The side rod tapering went fairly quickly and now its on to plowing out the middle of the side rods to make them look more like an I-beam. After taking what seemed like an eternity to plow out the sides of the main rods with a ball-end mill, I was not looking forward to this operation on the other 8 side rods. However, after relocating the spiders and knocking off the dust and cosmoline, the new cutter that Ed dug up out of the deep dark recesses of the shop saved the day!
It took a bit of time to get the bugs worked out of the CNC program, but the result was well worth the effort. Using the new cutter, Ol' Betsy makes 5 passes to remove the entire width of the center material in the rod and leaves an almost mirror finish. The program is run twice with .100 of material being taken the first time and .050 being taken on the final run. Once again under the watchful eye of Ed, I make liberal applications of "rooster juice" to keep things cool and all lubed up and babysit the mill. Here is a picture of the final passes being taken. 1 rod down, 7 to go. Maybe I can still beat that Christmas deadline.
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