Fork Crown Race Cutting and Facing

i understand your dental warning, and i totally agree that chibon is to be avoided:)

but i just figured he knew the risk of going the chinese route.. he paid up for it.. and looking at the pictures he might thought the crown race is supposed to fall in it's place..wich isnt the case..unless it's split, wich is still an option too..

Fair enough.

For what it's worth though, while a split crown race may fit onto these forks more easily it won't really solve the problem and using a bike where the split crown race that had been split further than intended then assembled into the rest of the headset may cause other issues.

Well, the fork is too thick at the base, where the crown race should be installed to actually clear the bottom bearing cup - So I guess something is wrong, unless when the crown race is installed it will take off a whole load of the clear coat crap with it and therefore the crown race would then sit correctly.... which might be correct, will probably take it to an lbs a little later this week.

The fork was something like £47 with delivery, a pain if it's fucked but at the end of the day it would be not great loss if it's dodgy as fuck.

Like I say, that ridge doesn't just look like clear coat to me but you have the forks in hand so you're best placed to comment on that.

Lets presume it is just clear coat, simply forcing the crown race on over the top is not the way to go, the excess clearcoat will impede you from getting a proper, even installation on the crown race.

Is it just that ridge that's in the way or is it possible to tell if the diameter of the whole crown race seat is off? I'd suspect that if there's clearcoat all over it it will be. In the case of metal forks which have paint on the crown race seat making it appear that the seat is too large diameter then a light facing would remove said paint (without actually removing any metal) and allow correct installation. It's very easy to remove paint/lacquer and stop before you remove metal, I honestly don't know if it would be so easy to stop before removing carbon.