Its time to turn the sanding and polishing of the side rods over to the silent partner in this project (my brother) and move on the the next step. I know I have a steam-related disease real bad when I dont want to remove the rods as I could just stand there for hours staring at them mounted on the drivers. With the side rods in place I it doesn't take much of my imagination to visualize a sort of a mechanical symphony of organized chaos with wheels rotating and rods moving back and forth. Thats it, it must be a disease - its either that or just plain lunacy (according to my wife).
On to the crosshead guides! The guides were made of 2 pieces of bar stock that I machined and ground to get real smooth and flat and then bolted together. I performed this work about 3 years ago and then moved on to bigger and better things. After digging around in the back of the bottom drawer the guides were once again allowed to see the light of day. We profiled the outside of the guides and then started the groove down the middle where part of the crosshead shoe whould reside.
Then it was time to cut out the pockets at each end and take a final pass to the finished dimension.
Next step is to split the halves and mill in the "T" slot.
