I have to agree with HighPlains. I never use anything but dowel pushrods. I've used everything over the years and always come back to dowels. Pine for large models and balsa for small ones. I prefer cable for rudder on large models but occassionally still use dowels. I always run a few horizontal balsa "sticks" above and below the dowels down the fuselage on larger models just to keep the engine vibration from setting up a vibration in the dowel. The only issue is that the servos sometimes need to be stepped one higher than the other because if you cross the dowels to help with the fuselage exit alignment, the different level servos will keep the dowels from rubbing each other.

Paul