Thats an impressive fix John, not sure I'd have the confidence to do that on my mill.

One of the reasons I am considering buying one is to aid in the restoration of my 90y old one primarily to make new leadscrew nuts and/or shafts - the lathe in its current state is just not accurate enough to do a bootstrapping exercise. However I don't want to spend a lot of time and effort making the new lathe work right... I have too many old ones that don't (yet)!

Your thoughts on how to approach these things is inspirational - to the extent of rethinking how I might rebore the bearings by hanging the bed vertically from the mill table instead of making up some form of spindle assembly. I also learnt a lot about tapered gibs and the making thereof. Now I have the dilemma of whether to consider making them for the old lathe or not... is it a restoration or refurbishment & improvement I want to do?! I am still trying to figure out what part of the bed/saddle/spindle 'moves' under cutting load to determine why it cuts inverse tapers.