Its great that you can buy a staple forming mandrel if you know exactly what taper and eye size you want ,but if you want to experiment a little, and are a little handy, heres a way to grind a mandrel to measurements your trying.
The taper of the mandrel is adjusted by how long you have the metal sticking out of the hold block. The taper vs eye ratio is adjusted by the height of the holding block. I do this by useing a deck of playing cards ,more or less cards under the block for height adjustment.
It takes a bit of trial and error to get it right . The beauty of this method is that you end up with the two faces ,the same angle and parallel by just flipping over the block. All is needed is to then round off edges and form the eye shape you want.
RORY
