Thank you for your replies.
Yes my understanding was the binary stars close enough to have small periods (by our lifetime standards) are too close together to optically resolve by conventional observation, however there were pairs (ie those mentioned) that were close enough to us that I thought it should be possible with appropriate time and patience.
Sadly I seem to have insufficient of either of the above
Which brings me to spectroscopy and is something I would like to pursue further down the road. I hadn't considered it for this purpose, but it did come up when I was researching an answer to my question. Astro-spectroscopy is a field I've been fascinated by since learning about it. It strikes me as serious science on a pauper's budget and I'm definitely looking forward to pursuing that when the opportunity presents itself.