thanks all for the sound advice....much which admittedly i have not taken lol....sorry but this might irke quite a few of you....but....

lets just say i dont know the make of the fork. it was NOS off ebay for around 30 bucks. chrome, lugged, threaded. thats all i know. considering this is for a beater singlespeed coaster brake bike built around an old Phillips 3 speed frame from the 60s i bought for 10 dollars, the lazy/impatient side of me got the best of my meticulous side.

i surely would have waited for the calipers i have coming in the mail, measured the fork crown seat and the crown race and then had it machined professionally by the LBS (although admittedly i am trying to boycott them for various reasons, hence trying to do as much home mechanic work as possible without them) if it was for a nicer build...

HOWEVER i just went the brute force route and took a file to the fork last night. i think i did a pretty good job filing evenly around, by counting to 10 strokes from 12 oclock to 1 to 2 to 3 oclock, etc.....

and it worked! didn't need much filing at all. about a TV show's worth. even put the fork in the freezer while i did it, then put the crown race under very hot water. not sure if it helped or not, but all in all the crown race is finally on and im happy.

NOW, was this the right way to go about it? probably not. will going about it this way result in catastrophic failure? im thinking no. but ill definitely report back if still alive when it does

thanks everyone.