Well in the end, I couldn't actuallly find anything else I needed to get the order up to £10! (It was a real struggle & some of their prices are quite expensive - esp for the stuff I'd normally want!), and all this talk of those pieces being hardened has put me off.

I've now ordered some bog standard lengths of 5mm mild steel rod & will just have to hone my parting off skills (& buy a Nickel plating kit)

due to the potential drudgery of parting off lots of 5mm diameter & 5mm long steel pieces I'm now toying with the idea of coming up with some form of a simple feeder to feed the steel rod into the the rear of my lathe's chuck!). that said my mini lathe went bang last night (literaly) so all this is on hold pending investigations into that (& it doesn't look good - probably the pcb).

Oh joy ...I don't suppose anyone has a DC motor driver board they want to sell?