More shop time making little fiddly parts the past few days.
Since I obtained my O/U reamers, I reamed the cross hole of the rocker bracket and inserted the rocker pins. Not a press fit, but I suppose brass rod isn't necessarily on size.
![](http://www.pbase.com/kvom/image/118361394/large.jpg)
Next I started on the rocker arms. I first took a 6x6" piece of 1/4" aluminum plate and cut off as slice that I machined to 1" wide. I then milled the profile of the arms. The sides of the center section were milled with a 1/8" ballend endmill to obtain the rounded corner profile. I then used a 1/4" endmill to slice off 10 pieces. At the end of the cut the pieces would snap off leaving a large burr that would need to be milled off later.
![](http://www.pbase.com/kvom/image/118361397/large.jpg)
The next machining steps required the use of soft jaws on my Kurt vise, as both the rockers and the connecting rods to follow are 1/8" thick. After mounting the jaws, I milled off the existing slot with a 1/8" endmill to get a flat starting point. Then I clamped a 6" rule between the jaws to allow clamping room later, located the center of the slot with the edge finder, and milled a 3/32" deep slot with a 1/8" endmill.
![](http://www.pbase.com/kvom/image/118361398/large.jpg)
After positioning a vise stop and locating the x-axis with the edge finder, I was able to mill off the burr from each piece, and then drill the vertical hole that will accept the pushrod:
![](http://www.pbase.com/kvom/image/118361399/large.jpg)
The same setup was used to spot drill, drill, and ream the cross hole for the rocker pin.
![](http://www.pbase.com/kvom/image/118361401/large.jpg)
Finally, I cut four pieces of 1/8" square brass rod (using a wire cutter is quicker than hacksawing), and used the same vise slots to mill to length, drill the cross holes, and finally mill the slot in the end (1/16" endmill):
![](http://www.pbase.com/kvom/image/118361402/large.jpg)
For those who haven't tried soft jaws and have a vise with removable hard jaws, I can recommend them for holding thin pieces where parallels are impractical. Note that you can drill into the jaws through the pieces, which is not a good idea with hard jaws.