OK - purists close your eyes or go for coffee.
I have done many 00's if not 000's of such parts by - making a sleeve / bush the ID = to the across corners dim of the stock (it works on rectangular too) - with a bout a 3/8'' wall, and then slitting
Slide stock in to bush and clamp in 3 jaw - making sure the split is <> equidistance between 2 jaws and <> centre of the face of the material.
Well.. taking note yah didn't NEED to broach to fit, just left ID cylindrical and gripped the corners?
I'd call that right clever, actually.
Especially if yah used shiney-wood and just let it form its own micro-vee-blocks as it went along. Match to the old ones, or rotate to clean metal. No foul, either way?
Should work on a six-jaw just as well - probably better.
Or even a four. Indicate off the smoother OD of the bushing instead of the polygonal stock?
For "purists" who HAVE a cawfee.. and would prefer to reach their end of days without need of
investing in a scroll-operated 3-Jaw. Not THAT "pure" anyway - given the 2-Jaw and 6-Jaw
are "scroll operated".
Even so.. WITHOUT sech of a bushing already to-hand, drill press mought have spit out the first drilled and tapped finished part by the time a lathe is completing the second hole. Quite aside from time-eating set up, the part shown is easier to manage all-around in a vise - and then the DP makes and taps holes faster, each go than a lathe.
That's
all it does, but it is what it does
best.. or it would not need to exist.
CNC mill can beat it.
Manual mill has some precision advantages over a DP, but is otherwise overall slower at basic round holes, generally has less daylight and such, fussier workholding as well.