The iron castings for the truss rod anchors were too hard to machine and drill so I decided to mill my own out of steel blanks. I set up four inside anchors on one steel blank and four outside anchors on another. By milling them together at the same I was able to keep the angles consistent. I then cut them apart, drilled the mounting holes and radiused the corners.

I also chose to fabricate the queen post bases out of single blocks of steel which, in my opinion, look more attractive.

After cutting and threading the 3/16″ and 1/4″ truss rods, everything was assembled and tightened on the upsidedown frame.

Once flipped over, the frame suddenly takes shape, especially when sitting on a pair of RMI arch bar trucks. Now I’m inspired to begin work on the actual shay trucks!

At this point the frame is about 95% complete. I’m hoping to begin work on the rest of the shay trucks soon so I can get the frame off of the RMI archbar trucks temporarily holding it up.