Soft glass vessel tool

I've been working on how to make the stopper system work in soft glass. The main problem is the inside taper on the neck. This is my latest solution.
The tapered head fits on to a standard 1/4 inch blow tube. You dip the tapered mandrel head in bead realease and build your vessel on the end, a la Tink Martin. This gives you a neck that has an inside taper that matches my stopper making block. When you are done, you pull the vessel off with a kevlar glove and put it in the kiln. After it is annealed, you clean out the release, measure the size of stopper you need with the matching tapered reamer, match that to the right hole in the block and make a stopper. After it is cool, you use grit to make it fit exactly, takes about 30 seconds of grinding. Voila!
I have made many vessels like these in boro this way. My only problem with this is that I have not been able to find someone to make the tapered heads at a reasonable price yet. Apparently, small stainless is hard to machine. My two prototypes cost me $75 each!