Originally Posted by
FBinNY
If you let us know where middle earth is, I or someone could probably refer youto someone skilled and equipped to do the job.
BTW0 if it's a steel TiG welded frame, with no reinforcing band at the ends of the head tube, odds are that there's enough giver in the tube to accept a 30.2 without reaming. In fact I avoid reaming these to full size because the tube is thinner than what the spec was designed around, and when reamed to 30.2, or 31.75 headsets tend to get loose over time especially at the lower end. If it does have a band, there's still enough give (usually) to press in a headset, but more force is involved.
I guess middle earth has now moved to New Zealand but I still live in the original middle earth, Des Moines IA. There must be frame builders in Minneapolis St. Paul who could ream out my headset; there is at least one frame builder in IA I need to contact and see if he would do it. I think my bike should be fine; it is an old school lugged custom built frame set. Reaming the bike to ISO is a long-term solution to the problem but I don't go through headsets very quickly so I'm leaning towards finding the right "mixed" headset. Sourcing a mixed headset (26.4 race with JIS cups) should be possible but a lot of the vendors (and bike shops) have no idea what standards are for one inch threaded headsets. The bike was built by Mike Melton. Here is a pic of the headtube:
