well it kind of just feels like a bick thick piece of copper, possibly not all the way through (ie steel with copper on the outside or something like that), problem is i don't know much about the gaskets either, head was not pressure tested (i will be doing all that this time however, just to hope that it will be alright.)
Mates instructions said i needed to re-eneal (spelling?) it before reusing it, to just before cherry red in appearance, which should have softened it up a bit.