Suddenly a wild collet chuck. Quicky insert because I didn't have a 3/16" insert. For this sort of thing I really prefer collet chucks to drill chucks as I don't have to worry about it slipping or the lateral forces pulling it free.
Followed by much tedious polishing, I'll spare you the details of that. Suffice to say shiny and smooth... Mostly. Similar activities were undertaken on the other metal bits, sadly there was a bit of solder bleed, so that entailed a full repolishing. Lesson learned I guess.
Somewhere in the middle here I drilled all of them about 1.5" deep through the brass end.. Drilled everything at 3/16" first and then half to 1/4". The smaller hole helped keep the 1/4" lined up while drilling. I put the drill chuck in the headstock and pushed the piece onto it using the tailstock quill in the divot to maintain center while stabilizing the work with my left hand. The reason I did this was partially because there wasn't much to get ahold of to chuck the actual workpiece and partially I didn't trust the thin section of the work to not twist and break. Holding it by hand gives a lot of feedback and if I felt anything bind I could just let it slip and spin. Meant to get a picture here but somehow failed. Hope that makes sense.
Finishing up the ends. Now that it's drilled I cut off the bit of waste and carved the details. Decided to go with sort of an inset faceted look. I think it works OK.
Zee gluing. Actually the masking before the gluing. Used epoxy with a bit of black added to make it mostly disappear. The actually gluing was a tight situation, as I was using the system 3 five minute stuff and it was starting to cook off by the time I'd assembled the last one.
Got the first coat of finish on as well, the home stretch on this part is in sight!