BAN036 bolt & nut w. large washer 0,5mm

The washer as the third element of a joint

A bolt and a nut are usually the first thing we recall about hardware, but real assembly normally has a third component as well. A washer is inserted so that the load is spread over a larger area and the nut does not bite into the material beneath it when tightened. Where the load-bearing part is softer or thinner, it is impossible to work without one at all.

For a model a pleasant consequence follows. The washer widens the outline of the joint, so even the finest 0.5 mm size stays readable on the surface and does not disappear under the coat of paint like a bare dot.

Where you will meet it on the subject

Most often where something is clamped to thin sheet metal or to plastic: covers, fenders, lighting brackets, the mounting of a seat or of boxes. On the load-bearing joint groups of a frame, by contrast, it is often assembled without one, because the material is thick enough to take the load by itself.

Working with the smallest grade

Half a millimeter is beyond the limit at which it can be worked with the fingers, and coarse tweezers will shoot the piece away rather than lay it down. The moistened tip of a stick or a brush with a single hair, with which you carry the part without gripping it, will help. Meter the glue in an amount you would otherwise consider ridiculous, because even a small drop here fills the whole space around the circumference.

Paint and keeping the outline

With shapes this small the thickness of the paint decides more than anything else on a model. Two thick coats can swallow the ring of the washer entirely and all that is left of it is a slight rise with no outline. Spray thinly, therefore, and rather several times, or install the detail only after the base paint and retouch it separately.

It also works well to bring the outline out gently once dry with a darker shade drawn into the groove around the circumference. The shadow that results turns a flat dot into a joint with depth.