Make a Cast Iron Straight Edge for £20 

These mini lathes are a big pet peeve of mine because so many people buy these, want these or try to use these but there’s not one single manufacturer that will make them right. They all have problems galore and while it’s actually fun to tune things up or adapt them for different things, these are practically torture to get working even half way decently. Can’t somebody charge $500 more and make one where EVERYTHING isn’t wrong with them? Now that would be fun to fine tune, debut and adjust. This is torture and you are a brave man or just a masochist with extra time on your hands.

You can often pick up old cast iron jointers (planers, you might call them in the uk?) which consist of 3 cast iron plates. The indeed and outfeed tables make good surface plates, and the fence a decent rigid straight edge. Takes a bit of work to scrape in, but are much beefier than a hand plane

I could really do with a bevel edge straight edge to scrape in my dovetail surfaces on my mini mill and the cross slide on my lathe but as you say they are impossible to find. I’m thinking of making one if I can source the right size of suitable cast iron. In fact the right size makes 2.

how would u go about if the poor man is really poor and doesn't even have a surface plate? What is he gonna reference this of of? Creating a surface plate via the 3-plate-method from the late 18th century?