Sorry to sidetrack a bit, but what do you all do against holdfast rusting? Mine has been getting rust pretty bad. I was just about to wax'em up till I saw Nick's post here.
I, too, had to roughen up the shafts to make them work initially on my 4" benchtop to grip (agree on needing to whack hard, too). Had no idea I was about to revert to where I started by waxing