Hi Hugh.

I went down the path of making my own, albeit not out of spring steel but regular steel. The modulus of elasticity is a bit less than spring steel but they should still work. Part of this process involved forming the eye. I think that you could do the same to a slipper spring and not even have to worry about re-tempering the end as the heat affected zone would only be at the eye, which would not actually see any bending force.

There's some photos of how I made mine on my build page that might help (link below)

The stock I used was only thin and so could be bent cold, but you would need to use heat.

HTH

Thanks Mick. I think that's what I'll do. I just made up a jig out of a couple of pieces of 7/8" bar to bend the slipper end of the spring, just need to see if I can get a propane torch big enough to get enough heat into it.

Cheers

Hugh

was there any progress in swaging

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xGu8Q0AC2rI
hot riveting a leaf spring mite be able to do that to a slipper spring

Sort of. I bought a large propane gas torch and managed to get enough heat into the end of the springs to bend an eye into them. The eyes aren't perfect by any means but they work. We are away at present but I'll post a pic when we get back.

I've got the front suspension half done now. Here are some pics of the rear spring eyes and hangers. I had a lot of trouble getting enough heat into them to forging them properly but I think they will work ok.

Those came out really nice.