Straightening a bike's forks

Here's the Elswick Hopper I got last week. Lovely bike, but the front forks had been pushed back by a collision at some point, so, though it's rideable, it bothered me, and I wanted that extra stability you get when there's lots of rake on the front forks; an old Omafiets I once had would ride perfectly happily no-hands..

 

I had to remove the front wheel and mudguard, and chainguard, and the rear brake rod assembly. 

Then I cut a 38mm hole in a lump of wood, this size approximating to the 1½" tubing of the bottom bracket.

 

....and then I cut the piece of wood in half, so I had two semicircular openings

 

....and cleaned them up with a half-round rasp, so that they fitted snugly on the bottom bracket. I held them loosely in place with some bungee, then secured a piece of timber to the front forks with a couple of screws, like this

...and used a car scissor jack to push the forks forward, taking them a little way past the point where they aligned with the headset, because they sprang back a little when the jack was released.

And there they are, nicely aligned! I had to tighten up the headset bearings a bit, because they'd slackened a little as the bearing cups came back into alignment.