From David Steel's The Elements and Practice of Naval Architecture the bindings for the fore and main channel dead eyes and their chains were 1.75" in diameter for a 100 gun ship. I have no idea what your scale is but if it is the 1:87 kit this would be right at about 0.5mm as they suggest. When assembling the links a low temperature silver solder works very well. A soldering iron is all that is needed versus a torch. Once they are soldered be sure to clean these thoroughly, preferably with pickling solution, before they are blackened. The plates should be filed and pickled or at least cleaned with acetone as well. Body oil from fingers may cause problems for both soldering and blackening so best to handle with forceps or where rubber gloves. They were iron so leaving them brass color would not look at all realistic. The mizzen deadeye metal work would be slightly smaller, but at these scales probably not noticeable if the 0.5mm rod is used. Even though it is softer some builders prefer to use copper versus brass as it can be blackened in situ with diluted liver of sulfur, is instantaneous, and will not stain the wood even when blackened in place.
Allan
