Why did your Prodigy PaperPro One Finger Stapler die?

Possibly also known as ‘how to fix your PaperPro Prodigy One Finger stapler”

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A customer dropped this stapler off because it would no longer staple. I determined it was probably not going to be economical to fix; partly because it would likely be outside of an IT guy’s expertise, and also because I could not get the bugger apart using traditional IT tools.

Paperpro Long Reach Stapler User Manual Online

Rather than just bin it outright I decided to take a destructive route to disassembly first, and let F=MA plus concrete take care of that.

It came apart with a few sudden strikes to the garden path from 3 metres; destroying some plastic end pieces in the process.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that this stapler uses a spring and lever to rapidly fire a metal plate onto the staple. Thus, this metal plate takes significant forces from two spring-ends that fit through holes towards it’s base, and in this instance it appears the metal plate became weakened over time and eventually broke into two pieces as shown below.

Paperpro Stapler Loading Staples

Paperpro Long Reach Stapler User Manual

A skilled metalworker could probably produce a new plate, but not I.