I'll Take a Side of Rods to go with that...
I wanted the side rods to be similar to the GS-4. The only way I could do that was to hand make them. Up to this point I was following the plans I bought from "Little Engines". Now it was time to use my CAD skills. I took measurements from the prototype drawings, made my own drawings to scale and began work. First, I cut the pieces to size, then I drilled and bored the holes. I wanted to make sure that they were the right size before I spent hours making them look pretty.
The next step was to use the mill to put a profile on it.
I then rough cut the outside profile with my band saw, milled as much away as possible, filed for several hours and sanded by hand for more hours. Each side rod took me about 20 hours (there are 6 of them). Here they are all happy together.
I must have quartered the wheels/axles properly because they turn without any binding. Happy days!
