When TeflonŽ pads slide across a surface they are trying to follow the plane of least resistance. The Teflon rides the 'bumps' on the bearing material, usually melamine on most commercial Dobsonians, and as such the force applied can be considered as a tangential to the curve of all of the 'bumps'. If you wish your telescope to perform better in the Azimuth motion, there are two things, or a combination, that you can try. Firstly if you have just the melamine finish, try polishing the tracking area with ArmorallŽ. Not just a swipe like you do to your dash, but a good hard application of two or three coats. The second thing you can do to improve your bearings is to put a disc of Ebony Star Formica (a WilsonArt product) where your melamine surface is (use a contact adhesive like Kwik Grip) and you will have an incredible bearing surface. We talk about this in terms of "sticktion". See Richard Berry's article in Amateur Telescope Making Volume 8 page 26 entitled "How to Control Friction in a Dobsonian Telescope". An excerpt:
"We will now find th azimuth component. Let Rz be the radius of the azimuth bearing. Wz be the combined weight of the telescope and rocker, and A, the altitude angle of the telescope. If L is the length of the telescope between the side bearing and the eyepiece, then Lcos(A) is the moment arm of the eyepiece about the center of the azimuth bearing. Given the coefficient of friction -f - between the materials of the bearing then fWz/3 is the force necessary to move one bearing pad in a straight line, and fWzRz is the torque required to rotate the bearing."
If you can follow this then you will really understand the article and how important this "sticktion" is to the ease of 'push'. Great article, sorry the magazine is no longer available. I am prepared to answer any question anyone may have about this! The 27" used to rotate pretty well, jus the vibration of the trusses didn't help!