Retrofitting 1-1/4 ep holders to 10x80

hello, has anyone heard of changing
german tank binos over to ep holders,
thanks in advance for any info or advice,
or do I have too much thinkin time on my
hands :} bob

German tank binoculars sound like nice units (Ziess?). If so DON'T crap them up!!!

First off you are going to have a huge problem with just getting the thing to focus. Most exchangeable EPs have a field-stop (focal points) that will be well behind your original EP focus point. To modify the binoculars to take interchangeable EPs would likely be a MAJOR rebuild of the unit (as in cutting the tubes to shorten them). Modifying the EP MAY work but you still have to mess up the bino body to mount them. Since everything in those binos are mounted firmly and balanced and optimized for the existing design parameters (spacing between the objectives and erecting prisms and EPs, exact positioning of EPs for a small but well defined focus travel range, smooth interocular adjustments that will preserve all the other things, etc.) messing with it will probably end up with a unit that would never come close to what you would want it to do (as in never focus worth a da*m, always slipping out a alignment, etc.).

For the price and ease of use newer binos are incredibly complex optical units that are real bargains at the price. As such there are just too many things (in one package) to mess up unless you are a master optical worker (IMHO). Save yourself a mess of frustration and just buy new ones, as even cheapie TASCOs will do better than tearing into a good pair that may well never work again.

FWIW