I bought a used 'dummy' hub, disc and caliper/lever for this purpose and used it successfully twice and unsuccessfully once. I build for myself so, it's not a huge deal to make a custom machined caliper adapter. I tried to make my own Post Punk-like thing but the tolerances have to be very tight to match the spec and well, i'm also a newbie machinist so...I bought an Anvil Post Punk a few weeks back. It's wonderful to hold.

I think that hub/disc/caliper approach is appealing for newbies. It's intuitive and re-assuring where things are and what will work or not work. The downside is that it's not as accurate/precise or reliable - just waving the torch past the disc warps it enough to make the placement potentially out of spec...