I was cresting up a batch of Douglas fir shafts this weekend and my old Bohning lathe was "stuttering" and the arrow wouldn't spin about 25% of the time.  "Time for a new rubber gasket" says I.  Well, the new gasket was just as bad.  Harumph.  I could twirl the arrow in my fingers with barely any resistance.  The gasket was twirling inside the groove in the arbor with plenty of clearance.

So I set back and pondered life and then started poking through junk bins.  I came up with a solution in the form of the wire from a Chinese take-out box (malleable iron wire - yes. I'm a pack-rat).  I bent it into a circle with round jaw pliers and fashioned a loop on either end so I could squeeze it in and then expand it with the plier jaws (it's not springhy enough on its own).

A cheap fix that had me back up and running fine.

 

 

Note - My Sharpie pen cresting with pecan stain above and yellow leather dye below.  Metallic highlight lines will be added after the polyurethane finish

I love inventive fellows.

Thanks for sharing Charlie, I've got the exact same Bohning crestor. I haven't had this problem yet, but at some point I probably will so I'll keep this little trick tucked away in memory.

I'm also a pack rat, I've been working of reducing some of my clutter but I have a hard time throwing anything away that could prove useful someday.
Problem is, as soon as I toss something out invariably I will need it 2 days later.

Thanks for sharing Charlie. I have the same problem, the replacement rubber gasket is not available and the gasket that was close in size does not work. I think that I will try to build a similar spring and use that to solve the problem. Thanks again for sharing!