Most machinery has reference surfaces built in, and often it is intentional. You are not the first one who needed to measure their lathe for wear, not by a long shot. At least you have some input on how to do it correctly. If you want to make some templates to check out the V-ways, you will need to make them to fit the ways as they originally would have been when new. There is usually negligible wear at the tailstock end of the bed, and also very close to the headstock to use as patterns. On some lathes, extended ways support the headstock in the correct position, and those surfaces should stay pristine, but require removing the headstock to get to them, not exactly a trivial task... The ways near the tailstock end are usually adequate for the purpose. The templates need to fit the factory ways, not your worn ones, and also need to have reference surfaces, typically the flat tops or the bars, that are parallel to the V-ways and also the same distance from the V-ways. I think I remember Connelly covering making templates pretty well in the book, except he made it sound easy, and it no doubt was for him. I really recommend that you read that entire book, cover to cover, and get some serious scraping practice and training, before attempting any portion of a reconditioning to your lathe. There are many nuances that can and will influence the final results as well as the overall difficulty of the project. Make sure you pretty much understand the entire project and the work flow sequence before starting any part of the job. If you start with fitting the wrong parts in the wrong way, you can end up with major metal removal required further down the line, or starting over at the beginning... BYW, I am by no means any kind of expert at this, far from it, but I have read and studied it pretty well, and do have some limited experience with scraping and with adjusting the fits of machine members.