OK, so my eyelet experience goes as follows.
1) Cheap does not mean good. If you are planning on using eyelets on multiple projects, my suspicion is that you will do better buying more expensive tools than I did
2) If you are going down the cheap route, know the size of eyelet you want to use. I bought a 'multi size' set (red handles in pic) for which the hole punch seems perfectly OK - but the 'riveter' or whatever the thing is called which squeezes your eyelet into shape is not. It does a good job on the size of eyelets supplied but I wanted a smaller (3mm) nickel size and you can see the results on the 'oops' bit. Copper eyelet, lovely, standard size. Smaller 3mm Nickel eyelet - crushed into oblivion.
3) If you are only using one size, for one small project, buy a size specific set (the bits without the red handles) While the quality is still not great, the results are fine. If you look at the piece without any colouring, you will see the back and front of the eyelet which is perfectly acceptable. However, even doing just these two eyelets, I bent the pin (easy to straighten) but I don't think this cheap eBay set would last more than 50-100 eyelets.
So - like many things in life, cheap out and you don't get long term use, however if it's just for a handful of projects cheap doesn't mean poor quality results, just not many of them before it breaks.
