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Hi Al,
You’re on the right track - use the stars themselves.
I use a bright star on the meridian to set the mount altitude - I don’t even bother to level the tripod.
Then use a star low on the horizon due east or west to set the azimuth of the mount.
This will align the mount to about ½ the resolution of your circles (in my case 1 degree) which easily puts octans in the scope at low power.
From there I point the scope at dec -90 (ie south) and rotate the polar axis 180 degrees (east-west) while looking through the finderscope - the stars trace arcs which show where the polar axis is pointing.
Twiddle knobs on the mount to align, repeat and your done - much faster than drift aligning.
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