Reply by Ripthorn

I don’t know what to tell you about the missing part, but something I just started doing (due to my own crappy drive spur) that has yielded great results is to take off the drive spur, whack it into the end just until the spurs make a mark. then use a chisel (1/4” in my case) and make deeper indentations. Then put the drive spur back on, mount the piece so that the drive spur is in the now deeper slots, then advance the tailstock. This greatly reduces the amount of force you have to put on the tailstock to attempt to get the drive spur in deeper. Worked great for me, solved most of my issues with turning fine spindles.

-- Brian T. - Exact science is not an exact science