I use an independent 4 jaw for drilling so I can adjust the blanks position, I drove large metal cutting lathes with them for a very long time and made my own adaptor for a suitably small chuck to fit on the wood lathe.
Re your original question, wood from hobby suppliers can be expensive, off-cuts from larger suppliers are often cheaper, my last 50x50x500mm of Zebrano cost me a tenner as it was an off-cut, cut down lengthways into four ~21x21mm lengths it's good for quite a few pens. The gifted Cherry, Holly and other timbers from an old friend who cut some of it 35 years ago are great, but take a lot more prep.
