Zeroing a universal mill table

[Hawkeye]

Pete, I'm trying to picture the setup you used. I'm thinking you had a face mill mounted in the NMTB 40 spindle socket and were raising (or lowering) the Z-axis for the second cut across the workpiece. If that's the case and you got a step, it could be the Z-axis that's allowing the table to nod away from the column. Might be worth checking the Z-axis gibs to see if they need snugging up a bit.

If that's not it, I'd do the sweep thing on the face of the column, like you said. You've got just under 9" of flat surface to sweep in a full circle - Nice because it just misses the end of the gear bearing block below the spindle, and it's above any area that would have the knee sliding on it. If that surface sweeps true, mounting the indicator on the table will work. If it isn't true enough, you might be able to clamp a really straight flat bar against one of the slots on the table (the cleanest one) to run the indicator against, with the indicator stuck to the column.