[Christ]

I've never had good luck trying to reuse head gaskets, especially if they had any kind of miles on them. First of all, you'd have to get it off cleanly to reuse it, which probably ain't gonna happen with over 100,000 on the engine.

I had considered using a sheet of copper to make a gasket from the old template, though I'm not sure about the combustion rings (would copper hold up, or require plating?)

Remember, it still has to seal oil returns and water jackets that are around the dead cylinders.