Since I'm not building bikes every day it seemed very wasteful to buy a headset fitting tool and with Dan away I couldn't borrow his hydraulic press. So after a bit of measuring I decided that I should be able to use a temperature differential to ease the headset in. What that meant was using a heat gun to warm up the headtube and surrounding area until it was as hot to the touch as you'd want to hold. Then I used some circuit freezing spray to chill the headset down till it was covered in frost, which takes but a few second blast. I waited a minute or so for conduction to take effect and ensure that the whole headset bearing was icy cold whilst I gave the frame a final blast with the heat gun. I'd love to say that the heat had expanded the frame and the cold shrunk the bearing sufficiently that it just dropped in but of course that wasn't the case - a little bit of pretty gentle pursuasion with a rubber mallet was needed for both top and bottom portions.
With that done I fitted the forks and temporarily assembled the stack with a complete set of spacers and the brake hanger. Later when I know what the fit is like I will remove some of the spacers and cut down the steerer but for now I want to leave it as unmolested as possible.
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