Is there an easy, reliable way of doing this at home? Without buying a new tool hopefully.

plastic waste pipe is about the right diameter to push the crown race down, and you are unlikely to do any damage to the forks.

Ta. Trip to Homebase then.

length of plastic plumbing pipe of diameter just greater than your steerer

keep it long enough to allow you to hold the fork against it upside down and bang the free end on the floor (better than standing the fork lowers on the floor while you bang down, I think)

If race is a very tight fit you might try (in order of preference IMO:
Heating the race in boiling water before fitting
bit of grease on the steerer
“ease” the inside of the race slightly and VERY carefully with a curved file
cut a slot in the race (unless it’s a very wide one such as an adaptor for standard steerer in a 1.5 headset) (actually I often do this, but some others dont like it so I’ve put it last)

Probably get told this is terrible for the headset bearings but I’ve never suffered any issues…put the crown race on the forks, put the forks back on the bike with stem, spacers etc as normal, tighten up topcap bolt, add spacers accordingly as you tighten.

I’ve never tried that approach. I normally rest the crown on something solid and bang down

If race is a very tight fit you might try (in order of preference IMO:
Heating the race in boiling water before fitting

Yep. Remember you’ll pliers or something to pick it up with

bit of grease on the steerer

Yep.

“ease” the inside of the race slightly and VERY carefully with a curved file

Never ever had to do this.

cut a slot in the race (unless it’s a very wide one such as an adaptor for standard steerer in a 1.5 headset) (actually I often do this, but some others dont like it so I’ve put it last)

Never had to do this either

I just cut a slot in them now – much easier if you want to change fork or headset later.

A Dremel for a quick neat job but hacksaw should be fine.

Recoiled in horror at cutting a slot in race, but then remembered that the deadest has cartridge bearings and so it doesn’t actually matter any more. :o)
Just have to buy brakes, groupset, stem, bars, seatpost now…

I’ve just looked in the box and the race is slotted already. 😳

😆

And now installed. Happyhappyjoyjoy!

🙂

I don’t get the resistance from some – if some manufacturers think it’s fine to run a cartridge bearing on a slotted race they should all be fine.

if it is a cartridge bearing headset you can cut a slot in ti and file it neat to create a split race. I’ve done this a couple of times now as I swap forks forks to rigid for winter and this makes the job much easier. Not ill effects as of yet (2 headsets, 1 year each on two different frames).