I'll second Joe's comments. Back in my poor boy, broke days I reused many a head gasket. If they looked good, I'd wipe em clean with gasoline, and spray a heavy coat of aluminum spray can paint on both sides, while it was wet slap the heads back on. Never had a failure. A couple times I did this cheap....uh, frugal method on some pretty good running 10.5 340 engines.
Another poor boy trick that never failed was instead of boring and honing, which is always best, I'd knock the ring ridge out of the cylinder and hand sand with my best cross hatch twist using dry 180 grit.
On piston rings, the cheapest were often chrome rings. Against all common wisdom and advice I installed them dry, no lube in the cylinders. They seated (broke in as we used to say) instantly, no smoke or oil use. Never had a problem like broke rings or early oil use from cylinder scarring. As a old friend liked to say, sometimes better to be lucky than smart.
RonR
