Gosh this thread has certainly woken up again after a month being quiet! … typically while I was away for a few days.
Thanks again for all of the suggestions. The job is not yet done but the materials have arrived to do the job with two rectangular aluminium bars and three holes. One thing the Faircut does very well is putting drills through things so I am ok with that. This is also a prompt for me to get my clamping arrangements made less hand to mouth and that is now underway.
The actual plan is to cut down a Taig steady and screw it to a Unimat compatible base. A similar base is planned for a hand graver support and another adapted Taig steady with a base to fit my son’s EW lathe. The Taig bits are also now in my grubby mits.
I will think about other options for riding the Unimat bars but the multiple block options would likely mean starting with different bar stock than the stuff I have already bought.
I am intrigued by the discussion of alignment but searching for the kinematic variety turned up a lot of info on knee surgery so I am not sure what it means for a fixed steady.
Regards, Andy