The normal (rather than stainless) ones come electro plated, or at least mine did. They just gain that slightly greyed look after a while. Painting them won’t harm though!
Hideous cost I reckon.... friend had 3PH put into a building and even them doing all the trenching and cable laying it was still I was to say something like ~£20k!!
Sorry I could have saved you writing most of that.... I'm familiar with the lathe types, but I just wasn't seeing how it would actually affect the operation of the lathe in this kind of setup.
I do think there's a difference between simply not understanding what does what, and those who are just making things down to a price without a care for quality.
Sadly I suspect people either don’t know there’s an issue… and then there’s also so many people these days selling all sorts that they just don’t understand in the slightest. That’s across all sorts of types of business’ too.
I'd just pop the steering bars off and see what it feels like. The seal should leave a little residue on the swivel ball so give it a wipe and then a turn each way before taking the measurement and it shouldn't add much to the reading.
In a nice way… Are you not short enough for it to sit on the deck and be the right height? Lifting one end at a time onto block with a pry bar isn’t too difficult. So it can sit down closer to the floor for now until it’s time to move it.
Some of them don’t have the bit on the end of the MT. The old Optimum I used to run you just wound the tailstock all the way out and it would knock the MT bits out. Live centre without the tang bit you just wound it back further.