Took some time today to clean up parts and reassemble. Cleaned up all of the pits in the rods and then used a blackener on them. All I had was aluminum blackener, but glad I decided to give it a try. It worked on the steel just fine. Took out all the scratches in the aluminum with a random orbit sander, and polished the end plates. I've got the files just about done for the spindle mount, just not sure if I want to use plywood or MDF. Aluminum would be my first choice if I had some thick scraps laying around, but like everything else with this build, it is all scrap, so if I don't have it I won't go out of my way to buy it. Probably go MDF and keep my eyes peeled for aluminum cutoffs for future upgrade.
Almost forgot to mention that all of the fancy screws came from a shoe display being thrown away at the local mall. Most of the screws, nuts, and bolts in my machine have been re-purposed this way.