Taking a quick break from work-from-home to bring you this update: The fork is on. This is the part where I start laughing with the same stately demeanor as Professor Fate (for those of you who've seen
The Great Race, you'll get this joke).
Headtube angle is at 71 degrees. We'll see how it handles like this - I can still shave off 5mm or so off the bottom of the headtube if I wish to bring it up to 72 degrees. Suspension fork may settle it down to 72 just from rider weight - not sure.
I bought an IceToolz cutter to get the headtube reaming done. The inner bore of the IceToolz cutter is 18mm and the VAR shaft is 12mm, so I cobbled a temporary sleeve out of an intake manifold coolant return connector. It worked perfectly, but I've ordered some Oillite bushings just to have a better fit in future.
I also tapped out the headtube eyelets while the opportunity still presented itself.
-Kurt