[crazybrit]

The max you'd be able to use is really a 5" chuck. With a 6" chuck, you could spin it, but it wouldn't allow you to open the jaws much wider than the chuck OD, since that would hit the way covers.

I've been looking for a used 4" chuck but I've read quite a few posts advising that a new Chinese chuck can be preferable to a worn used higher quality one. I certainly can't afford a Bison. Or rather I can but given that the entire lathe cost me about $300 I don't want to spend that much ....

Never bought from this company, they sell pre-finished backplates:

- https://allindustrial.com/all-indust...-lathe-chucks/

Not sure how great an idea the above is for accuracy vs something like this; of course I'd have to turn it down on the 3000:

https://littlemachineshop.com/produc...ProductID=1923

Lathe drawtubes are all for external threads - the internal threads on a 5C collet are for collet stops, so you can insert a workpiece to a specific length every time. If you made a drawbar for the internal threads, you would restrict the diameter of the work that would pass through it.

Yeah, that was obvious. I'm not sure what I was thinking.