con rod for a Mills 1.3cc diesel engine

Session 1.

Started to make the con rod after completing the fuel tank and top. The first
session started by squaring off the con rod blank. Second step was to
co-ordinate drill the big and little ends, then reamed to size. I was dissapointed to
find that the 1/8th inch reamer I bought was not 1/8th! On that little bomb shell I
called it a day. Tommorow I will have to get another reamer.

time taken 30 minutes

Session 2.

Carried on with the con rod today. I wasn't happy with yesterday's work, in
particular the grade of aluminum was soft to work, so I decided to start again.

Fortunately I have some 1.5" square stock so I cut off two blanks (spare in case of
problems...)and after milling both sides flat and to thickness it was a case of using
the DRO to co-ordinate drill the little and big ends. Removing the blank and
refitting in the vertical plane, the insets were milled to size.

Next it was a case of following Ron's methodology, using two drills to rest on, to
get the sides to the right taper. I built a fixture based loosely on Ron's
(http://www.modelenginenews.org go to the how to make con rods page) and
whilst it was scary at first, I succeded in getting a reasonable result shown in the
photo gallery above.

It only remains for the big end radius to be turned and the con rod cleaned up, and
it will be onto............the other blank and start again!!!!!! I hope not......time will
tell........

time taking today 3hrs 20 minutes