4 jaw chuck Boxford - Axminster etc

[Jonathan]

Thanks for the offer irving, but if Jonathan thinks it would be to much for the lathe then I'll take his advice.

No that's not what I meant. The 3" chuck irving has is good, but the 4" one he linked to would be too big - so buy his 3" chuck asap as that's a very good price and work out how to make the backplate! It's easy to make a chuck key...

They are to thick to fit through the chuck so I can round one end off.

Round one end off with it between centers then use that end to hold it in the chuck as normal? Unless you need to machine the whole length in one pass that should work...