Hmmmmm….

What do people think? The price is tempting, obvs, but frames and some of my headsets are worth a lot of money! Has anybody tried one of these? Is it easier to go to the hardware store and get the bits yourself?

easier to buy that than get the bits yourself, you wont save much by building your own.

Ive built my own and use oak for the contact faces.

But if I were to improve mine, Id borrow a friends lathe and turn some oak down into stepped cones to help with centring the threaded bar in the headtube.

They’re not bad I reckon but without stepped or much thicker spacers, you need to be careful to avoid the cups not going in straight.

I couldn’t get one of those to work at all (even after the headset had been in the freezer for a few hours) but the LBS who did the job in the end remarked that my headset + frame combo was particularly tight.

They work allright but a proper press has bearings above and below the pressy in bits to stop the cups twisting/rotating slightly during fitting, which if you’re anal about logo alignment or fitting anglsets can be a pita..

The trouble with all those is they’re pressing on the edges of the cups – fine for cheap strong headsets, but lightweight posh headsets can easily be damaged that way. Plus, they don’t do much in the way of alignment.

The stepped insert which pushes on the bearing races is a much better idea.

Thanks for all the info- lots of great, informed advice there! 🙂

I used one recently:

Worked fine.

I bought one, they’re pretty flimsy, but thats to be expected for the money.

They dont line the headset up properley, so you’ve got to be careful . The plastic disc is also fairly brittle, so can crack if you have a very tight fitting headset.

IN summary, they’re better than a mallet, but not by much.

iv a home made one, done several bb’s & headsets fine 🙂

Two large washers and a threaded bar here. Works every time for me. Just make sure it’s going in straight before you start turning!