Several points of interest. 1- If you make your alignment tool out of wood, any change in humidity, heat, wear, or pressure will effect the alignment !! 2- For those of us who also have mini lathes with a #1 MT, Sherline makes a Lathe Buddy alignment tool with a MT1 to MT1 taper $25.99. They also make MT0 to MT0, MT1 to MT0, and several others. 3- When I restore a wood lathe that is not turning true or straight, I drill and tap the tail stock where it comes in contact with the rails, and install set screws to hold the alignment side to side. If your alignment is off up or down, you may have to add shim stock or remove a little material from the front of our tail stock. Set screws are the method used on most metal lathes to correct alignment, and when you have a multi-axis metal lathe, you need an alignment bar to bring it back to true center quickly. 4- Most wood lathes are not made to be precise tools. If you are off 30 thousands from end to end on a 3 foot table leg or bowl rim, nobody will notice, however if you are off that amount on a 5 1/2 inch pen, nothing will line up and it will definitively be noticed. 5- I'm sorry Tony, but leveling the legs on your lathe is the dumbest solution I have heard in a long time. I have nothing against having your tools level, but If the frame of your lathe is that flexible that leveling the legs will bring it back into alignment you need a better lathe !! If your frame is rigid and bolted down to a work bench , you could turn your projects at a 45 degree angle and it wouldn't make any difference. 6- 90 % accurate is not close enough for any turning project !!. You should be able to get your lathe to dead center or within a few 1000's over the length of your rails. 7- Another solution would be to chuck a pencil laser ( $5 ) into your head stock and a half inch round rod into your tail stock, move the tail stock to the end of your rails and align. Use a rod that is larger than the dot on your laser so you can center it on your rod end. Once aligned, you will still need some type of adjustment screw to hold the tail stock in that position. If your rails are not perfect, you may have to realign at different positions along the rail. Excuse the long winded answer, but I like to cover everything in detail in one thread. Jim S