I finally got around to taking a picture of my lathe X axis backlash modification and here it is, the last picture. Alas, I did it years ago and I have forgotten most of the details. Which is a shame since I'd like to do it to the other lathe. One thing that I remember is that I called sherline for the distance between the leed screw and the backlash adjusting screw and the number they gave me didn't work. I wound up making this part many times till I got the spacing just right. The other thing I remember is that an endmill of one size or another made the perfect hole for the anti-backlash nut but ONLY if most of the hole was drilled out first.

To get to it I had to tear apart my lathe bench too, though it's designed for that. So while I was taking it apart I decided to document it in pictures too.

Basically my set up is made of several layers of MDF glued together with clearance routed on the bottom for 2" aluminum "angle irons", front and back. There's a gap between the aluminum angle and the MDF wide enough to hold sheets of plexiglass, one in the back (the first pic) and one in the front (the next to last pic). Then there are two pairs of threaded inserts that have been hammered into the MDF. The lathe is mounded on it's own piece of wood which then bolts into place, either forward or rearward as needed with a pair of wing nuts.

I made this set up when I bought a long bed lathe and chose to keep the short bed lath I already had. Now I can swap in either one as needed, though I generally keep the more versatile longbed on the bench. Note this this same set up could be used to swap out one more mills too. I haven't done this because the mill has it's own home. I'll have to take pictures of that another day...

The bench with the long bed lathe in the rearward position.

Wing nut at the headstock end. You can see the left-side forward threaded insert at the bottom left.

Wing nut at the tailstock end. Alas I cut the right-side forward threaded insert off in the pic. Woops.

Cables disconnected for the move.

Wing nnut removed.

Empty bench. The threaded inserts are hard to see but all 4 are there.

Wing nuts and left-side front/back holes.

Backlash nut modification for lathe saddle. The good news: it was pretty simple. The bad news: no diagrams, dimensions or procedures remain...