Originally Posted by
Doug Fattic
When I was learning to build frames in England, we brazed the crown first before brazing the dropouts. This allowed us to modify the length more easily to center the wheel. We didn’t have at Ellis Briggs a fancy fork fixture so that dictated doing the DOs last.
IMHO that's a superior way to make forks even if you do have a fancy fixture.
At Davidson we almost always brazed blades and steerer to crown in one heating, with the blades straight. Then raking, then cut to length, then brazing the dropouts. We made a couple thousand that way, always came out straight.