Con Rods

Another little task for today…

I decided to tackle the con rods today, so I made some leather washers, cut some brass for the bellows connections, and sheathed some lengths of 1/4-28 threaded rod in brass tubing. For the front con rod, I put bent the tubing/rod piece and secured it into the rod end with a spring pin. For the straight shaft, I used some loctite and put  a bunch of contact cement into the tube before sliding it onto the rod so that it wouldn't rattle, hopefully…

I secured the bellows-to-rod connector pieces to the bellows using #4-1/2" screws, then attached the rods using the leather washers sandwiched between two nuts and a brass washer. Hopefully I can eventually replace the steel nuts with some made of brass, so everything in that area is the same color:

Here's an upside-down shot from a wider angle: