I cut the lawns yesterday and as the weather was not the best I got to spend a few hours in my shop today!

Turning a connecting rod, I put a piece of 12mm square in the four jaw and began to slim it down a little.

Now I am going to solder a couple of short tubes to one end....

... the rod is being held in a small vice so that I can work on it with my 100Watt soldering 'iron' and my Big Boy's Hair Dryer!
A few minutes later and I have the two pieces soldered in place and I have drilled a hole that is just a tad undersize for that desired to fit the crank pin.

Then into the band saw it goes for a little trim...

Ready now for a clean up and I need to drill that hole to the final size too!

One crank assembly, the short rod is to the piston and has a long stroke, the long rod goes directly to the steam chest whereas the piston rod goes to a cross slide.

You might be wondering why I am using lead solder for this job, the main reason is that I do not have a safe place to use a torch and neither do I have a good enough torch. With lead solder I can do the job quickly and easily using just the big electric soldering iron and a hot air blower.