"Proctologically Violated©®" wrote:

I would highly recommend as many of those options as you can afford. A 5C
collet system is fairly essential for small parts, and moreso if any kind of
production is anticipated. Super-essential for thin-walled tubing. The
snap handle is but one system (imo the best) of closing sed collets.

However, in these smaller lathes, you might not be able to fit 5C (which go
from near-zero to 1.125 diam). Thus, to go the 5C route, you *might* have
to bump up the size of the lathe a bit.

It's worth looking at the Bison brand 5C collet chucks. Not super
expensive, though not cheap, and available in both 4 inch and 5 inch
sizes.

I use one of the 5 inch ones at work on a Schaublin 150, and its much
more convenient than the factory collet setup.

On the smaller lathes, you will be limited to the diameter of stock
that will fit through the spindle, but you will still be able to utilise
the larger 5C collets for shorter chunks of bar.

Cheers
Trevor Jones