Hi Roy, just spent some time thinking and looking at the lathe and I think one of the problems with the shortened leadscrew is that it's difficult to protect it against swarf? I'm inclined to go for a full-length screw and make up telescopic covers for it - for that you need a reasonable amount of space at each end to telescope the tubes together. I have a screw that should do the cross slide with a little bit of careful shaving off the cross slide to clear the nut flange (I may buy a spare s/h slide to butcher rather than risk the existing one on the lathe!). Thanks for the offer anyway and the useful chat.