If I understand you correctly, you're describing the removal of the race and the cup from the head tube. If so, I think you're fine for occasional work. Those pieces are pretty tough if you take care to avoid bearing surfaces.
On the other hand, here's a cheap and very effective way to do that task with less worry for causing damage.
http://davesbikeblog.blogspot.com/20...placement.html
http://www.mindspring.com/~d.g1/headset.html
J
Originally Posted by
BigPolishJimmy
Please enlighten my ignorance, I've not yet had to replace a vintage headset, and the ones I have replaced, were on dept. store bikes. For the dept store bikes, I just took a donor bike's headset, and tapped it out from the inside with a big ole wood handled standard screwdriver and a hammer. I place the tip of the screwdriver on the inner/bottm lip of the headset where any marks would be unseen. Then I tap gently with the hammer, going round the headset little by little in a star-pattern, similar to how you would tighten lug nuts. Again, I haven't used this method on a bike that I value, but before I do, is there a danger in ruining the headset in this manner? Are they so fragile that you would knock them out-of-round?