Clarke CL300 with dodgy Tailstock

[booski]

hi again, I would have replied sooner have been quite busy.

My tailstock is similar to that one above, well, exactly the same.
You can see that the tailstock itself is in 2 parts, with the base that sits on the bed ways and the tailstock that slots onto the base.

Looking at the second photo, you can see the angular section closest to you that sits on the ways that aligns the base. On the opposite side theres a raised section that sits flat on the bed ways.

Well, on mine, the opposite side isn't raised and the machining was concave rather than being flat so the base on that side didn't sit flat on the ways.
So, being a numpty, I took a file to the base on that side to make the base flat and well, removed the concave area so the base sit flat but wasn't perfect, and at the same time made the base sit even lower on that side by 1mm in total compared to the angular side. I'm pretty sure I didn't remove 1mm of material with a file so I assume that it was already pretty bad on that side.

Because the base is so terrible and was terrible to begin with, the base sits lower on that side meaning the tailstock sits at an angle.

My plan is to glue a piece of brass sheet to the base on that side to raise it up and then using emery paper taped to the ways, using the angular ways to keep it all aligned, slide the base up and down the ways and grind the brass piece down so that the top of the base is level with the cross slide.

Once that is done, I can perhaps do something similar with the tailstock to the base as the bottom of the tailstock is also similarly machined bad.