On Sat, 09 Jul 2005 00:47:30 +0000, Jerry Foster wrote:

I made an alignment bar that is just about the maximum
lenght the lathe can hold out of 2 in. diameter aluminum with the last
couple inches on each end cut and polished to the same diameter. Then I can
put a dial indicator on the tool post and it makes setting the offset (and
returning the tailstock precisely to center) very easy. You simply
calculate the offset required to give you the taper you want, given the
length of your stock.


Robert "teenut" Bastow once described a similar method of realigning
one's tailstock using a much smaller device.

Here's a copy of his description:
http://yarchive.net/metal/tailstock_realignment.html

In another article he credited Tubal Cain for the method, but it is a
cheap and elegant way of doing it and I'm glad he mentioned it.