Casting in alu you say, sound interresting. I have to think about that one, not really sure where to go:-) The main reason for choosing welding is i can have the pieces cut out for me quite cheep and the welding i can do myself. Either way im going to build a mock up of MDF to see if can eliminate some all the design changes that are sure to come when im standing with all the nicely cut steel pieces.
As for the whole headstock thing. I dont think ill need a bar feeder (though it could be fun to make some day:-), the max bore on ER32 collers are 20mm and the bore on 125mm chucks are 30mm. This means i will be aiming for somewhere in between, most likely at either 25mm (1") or at full 30mm. To be realistic i dont think ill ever will be doing production runs in the numbers of 1000's. Just pushing the bar through or using billets will do fine.
Thanks for all the inputs, keep em coming.
BTW i almost recieved all the items listed above, have to take some pictures, they are huge compared to what ive used before