At 12:02 AM 4/24/2009, Jarrett Anthony Kupcinski wrote...
>The hardware store wasn't much help.  The largest washers that even
>came close to the right thickness were neoprene rather than rubber.

What are you calling "rubber?"

Neoprene is a synthetic rubber (in fact, it was the first mass produced
synthetic rubber), and can be expected to last much longer than natural
(latex) rubber. I doubt that the originals were made of natural rubber.