Stabilizing a shaky turning with a bicycle inner tube

[Alan Weinberg]

learned a great tip on another forum worth mentioning and it sure worked today. When working on the inside of a thin turning and it starts flexing or there are cracks and concern about it staying together, some use a steady rest or wrap the piece with plastic wrap.

Another option is to get a bicycle inner tube and slit a portion of it lengthwise, then wrap it around the circumference of the piece, secured then with duct tape. Works great and Amazon sells the inner tubes cheaply.

Did it today and the technique worked really well, allowing me to turn a cracked piece to less than 1/4 inch thickness. I then stabilized the cracks with CA, epoxy, and some inserts (round instead of pewa).

This technique was briefly mentored on this site in 2015 but worth resurrecting.

 

[Darryl Fective]

I was picturing slipping over, then inflating it for a gentle hug around a fragile piece. They do come in a lot of different sizes and can be very handy.

Last year I had a trailer tire blow out and I bought 4 replacements. I could get them on the rims, but I couldn't get them to hold enough air to seat the beads. A ratchet strap around circumference usually works, but these tires seemed to narrow for the width of the rims. I'm leery of the starting fluid method and had to come up with something else. I bought a bike tube, and with it well lubed and inflated, it was enough to keep the one side against the rim while filling the big gap on the other side. Each time, as I inflated the new tire, the air pressure and seating bead displaced the bike tube, just in time without pinching it.

 

[Dean Center]

Your local bike shop probably has half a gazillion holey tubes it would be happy to give you.

 

[Alan Weinberg]

I was picturing slipping over, then inflating it for a gentle hug around a fragile piece.

Hahah. Instead, think of it as a giant rubber band.