By applying force on the table and spindle and watching for movement I was able to determine that the bulk of the backlash is the result of slop in the bearing blocks. It seems as though the dials at the end of the lead-screws have worn into the mating part enough to allow the stepped down portion of the lead-screw to poke up enough to cause the slop. My remedy was to use a half-round needle file to chamfer the dial enough to allow the lead-screw to protrude further into dial. This reduced the backlash to .002 or thereabouts instead of the .015 I started with on the Z axis. I wasn't able to finish the Y axis but I hope to get to it tonight. I need to get the backlash down to .002 on all axiis so that I can convert the mill to CNC. I've got stepper motors on order so the conversion is not far away.
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