Eye Bolt 2.5 mm

A robust 2.5 mm eye for the large scales

While the small positions of this range disappear under the fingers, two and a half millimeters is already a piece that will take a close look. The box holds ninety eyes and the shank is seated in a hole six tenths of a millimeter across.

What a size like this suits

In 1:35 an eye over eight centimeters in real diameter would look overscale, and that is exactly why this size is at home elsewhere: on 1:16 models of tanks, on trucks and tractor units in 1:24 and 1:25, on ships, on construction machinery and in large figure scenes. There it corresponds to the massive anchoring eye that carries the lashings of steel ropes and chains. Anyone building in 1:16 gets an attachment point around four centimeters in real diameter, that is exactly what can be gripped by hand on the real hardware.

Advice on fitting

The advantage of a coarser position is purely practical: the part can be held in the fingers, a 0.6 mm hole can be managed even with an ordinary hand drill, and a finished joint will take a line stretched across it. With large eyes it pays to shorten the shank so that the eye seats tight against the surface, otherwise a gap is left that varnish will not hide. Apply cyanoacrylate glue from underneath, so that it does not get inside the eye itself and flood it. Anyone adding fittings to a model that is already painted should roughen the area around the hole first, otherwise the joint will not take.

What builds it is for

• models in 1:16, 1:24 and 1:25 with visible fittings
• ships and harbor scenes with ropes and chains
• construction and agricultural machinery
• adding missing lashings in conversions