Boy - recently had a few jobs come in that were huge (for me anyways! <grin>)
Check out this photo I snapped of this piece of 4140 prehard.
9" diameter - 12" length
225 pounds of pure steel mounted in a Haas SL-30 with 10" chuck with tailstock.. I tell you it was scary prepping the hole for the tailstock.
I put 300 psi on the chuck pressure just to be on the safe side. Is there a general rule on how much psi one should put based on weight of material?
I used a fork lift with some lifting belts to mount the piece in the chuck - wasn't too bad at all!
cheers!
Paul