Tom, I had a conversation about this, about 2 years ago regarding narrowing BBC rods to FE width. Here's the info about that:
Chevs have a .983 wide big end with a .067 offset, Fords have 0. The big ends can be machined to .873, with ~0 offset. Bearing width is .893, I think and the bearings can be machined in the rods and the outside surface chamfered at the same time as the rod, to what ever filet the crank journal has. If you have a lathe large enough to swing the rod, you can do that in 2-3 hours.
You would take the short side of the bearing (inside surface) down to .005/.010 clearance to the bearings edge, on all 8, then turn the rod around and face it to .873. Then chamfer the bearing, after that.
It's not to hard but, you need to know what your doing with the lathe. I can walk you through it, step by step, if you want to do it yourself or give these instructions to a machine shop, with the above picture and they shouldn't have any trouble doing it for you.