BAN005 torx convex head Ducati 1,2mm

The largest head in this line

1.2 mm closes the grid from above. It is neither a gap in the range nor a step sold out, but the real end of the range the manufacturer set for this head. Anyone who needs to go higher has to move into another number series of the same brand, but there the shape of the profile changes too and the aim points at machinery, not at motorcycles.

Where the largest size comes into its own

On a 1:12 model only a few such heads are to be found, and they tend to be on the joints that carry a load or get taken apart: the mounting of a shock absorber, the rear swingarm pivot, the sprocket carrier. In larger scales or on car builds it becomes a universal size. The enlarged area of the crown moreover allows a distinction in color, a darkening for instance, which with the finer steps has nowhere to take hold.

Drilling and seating

The hole is drilled a full tenth of a millimeter below the stated size, and at a greater depth it is good to pull the bit out now and then and take the swarf away. Otherwise the swarf that builds up pushes the element back and the head stays hanging above the surface. Check the seating against the light from the side; a gap under the foot can be told more reliably from the side than from above.

Two or three steps of the grid are usually combined in one model. The upper limit is the least used of them, and all the more depends on it, because of the whole range it is the one seen best.

Before buying it is worth going through the real subject and counting how many such joints it actually has. There tend to be fewer of them than it seems, and the remaining places are better served by the smaller steps of the same grid.