Unhinged

So, I want to redo the hinges on the tail.  I had the feeling that the stock foam hinges were too stiff.  This stiffness has been somewhat confirmed when I observed the whole tail strut torquing over when either of the tail surfaces was pushed full lock in either direction.  I also noticed that my rudder (and I say mine because I did not notice this on my Dad's plane) would not move as far to one side as it would to the other. This turned out to be due to the rudder hitting up against the elevator bracket.

What did I do to fix this?  I cut the hinges and shaved them down.  Now I need new hinges.  My Dad's plane had a broken rudder hinge when he got it and we repaired that just with tape.  So my first idea was to use tape.

Because the elevator connector piece was part of the issue with the rudder, I took it out and replaced it with a dowel and opened the gap between the surfaces.  You can just see it in this photo.

Well, it looked good.  They worked ok.  But, I didn't like them.  They made crunchy, tape sticking sounds when moved.  Yeach!  I flew it once like this (well attempted to fly, it was very windy).  So, I pealed the tape off.

I started looking for other hinge methods and found people who were using sections of zip ties.  I looked into this and found several videos that made it look easy enough and like a good idea.  I had some zip ties and so gave it a try.

You can barely see the two hinges in the ruder.  These were really easy to do.  I just lined up the two pieces and used a marker to mark the locations and then used the pointed end of one zip tie to make the holes.  I then used Goop glue to hold them in.

Well I put things back together and tested it out.  Still torques the tail over.  Darn!  These are too stiff also.

Now, I was at my local hobby shop and found some thin plastic hinges that get inserted into a slot and then secured with a drop or two of CA.  So this is my next project.

See my next post Hinged Again for an even better option for thin surface hinges!

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Long Dry Spell

Wow it's been a long dry spell since I last had a chance to fly.  The weather has just been windy enough to not allow flying every time I've had a chance to fly.  Hopefully we'll soon have some calm weather and I'll get a chance to fly.  Until then, I guess I'll have to be happy with playing on the flight sim.

Flight sim controller, one for me and one for my Dad.

Looks good on my big screen TV!

Thanks for stopping by my blog and please post comments, good or bad.  Be sure to come back and check for future posts.