I'll Have Rods for Christmas...

Trying to get the side rods mostly complete by Christmas turned out to be a pipe dream but, I have come pretty close.  While I finished plowing out the middle of the rods, Ed started boring out the ends for the ball bearings. 

Of course the purist in me wants to use Timken roller bearings but the practical side wins on this one and we are installing sealed ball bearings.  At least the rod ends will have bearings like the real ones.  Now that we are almost done with the machining, it was time to relish the moment.  THEY FIT PERFECT AND LOOK GREAT!  So far we have 3 rods mounted in place and everything spins freely with no binding or kinks!  WOOHOO!

Merry Christmas everyone!

New Cutter to the Rescue!

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.

Taper for 2

The last couple of main rod pictures didn't turn out too well but I am happy to report that with the exception of boring the ends, all of the main rod machining is complete!  There is still quite a bit of work to be done in the finish and polishing department, but I think I'll pass that job on to my brother! :-) 

Now its on to the side rods.  Just a quick taper to the rods like this....

And then its time to start plowing out the middle of the rod.  Ed rooted around for a bit and came up with what will hopefully be the perfect slot cutter.  I wish he had found it to cut out the middle of the mains, but I guess it was not to be.