Wingspam

I have a VQ P40 that has been hinged at the factory and I want to pin the pinned hinges. What are some methods I might want to try? I have pinned ca hinges before but not the hard plastic hinges.

Thanks

huck1199

Have you thought of drilling holes and glueing in toothpicks?

Wingspam

Had not thought about toothpicks, althought I had thought of drilling holes and using real thin control rod.

Oberst

Of all my years in this hobby building and assembling aircraft- I have not once pinned my hinges! It's not neccesary and have not had any failures. Just make sure you soak the CA hinges, and it won't fail. My Nylon hinges I just epoxy in place making sure I epoxy both sides of the nylon hinge.

The number one reason from my observations why hinges fail is that they weren't properly installed.

Also, we never know when we might need to rebuild our plane, and removing anything that's pinned is a pain in the *****! I know! Plus we never know if we will be selling a plane to someone who will really take care of it, and will want to take it all apart and rebuild it the right way by removing all the components first, then recovering and reassembling the plane the correct way like I did to my Discontinued Great Planes Fokker DR1, and now rebuilding and modifying my League Models Neptune. Those hinges were pinned on the Neptune as well. %@#! Thank God for surgical clamps.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_10038870/tm.htm


Pete

Wingspam

I have never had a hinge fail that I have installed either, but these are factory installed and you never know who installed them. Adults or children..

Avaiojet

Wing,

Probably wouldn't hurt to pin them with toothpicks. Obviously, you cut off most the point.

You could put a guide on the drill bit so as to not drill all the way through the wing tops.

Drill from the bottom and set the drill to just clear the hinge.

Charles

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Drill a hole from the bottom of the TE and LE edges but don't go through the top or you will see the pins. Clip off the tips of some round tooth picks. those holes should be a nice tight fit for the tooth picks. Use a drop of thick CA in the hole and push the tooth pick in so it goes through the hinge and anchors into the wood of the top of the edges.
I have seen a lot of hinges come loose for a number of reasons, the few minutes it takes to pin a hinge is well worth the trouble.

airbusdrvr

Use a drill stop on your drill bit and you won't have to worry about going through the top of the wing/control surface. If you don't have a drill stop, just wrap about an inch of masking tape around the drill bit tip at the distance you won't the drill to go into the surface.

Avaiojet

Anybody bother to read my Post?

Didn't I cover those areas?

Oberst

The only reason I have ever saw them fail is because someone used too little CA or epoxy. Most ARF and all kits, scratch built- you have to install the hinges yourself. If any of them ever fail on me I only have me to blame. So far they haven't. Besides, I'm one of those who like to blame someone else for my errors. Just ask my wife!

It is my opinion that hinges don't need to be pinned. Besides, I check all control surfaces before flight by tugging on them. So far I haven't got one loose. The ARF aircraft that already have the control surfaces glued, I check them and if one of them is questionable then I apply more CA.

The factory installed nylon hinges, I wouldn't mess with them unless they look or feel like they are seperating. Then I would carefully pull the control surfaces off and re-epoxy, or replace the original hinges all together and replace with Dubro Nylon Hinges. But if you insist on pinning them, then what everyone suggested so far is the way to go. We all have our different methods and they all seem to work. The toothpick method works well, and if you ever need to rebuild your plane then the GP Slot Machine will cut the toothpicks, but you would have to cut each side of the hinge to be able to pull the hinge out. Better than trying to dig those metal pins out later on if you had to.



Pete

airbusdrvr

Sorry[&o]

A google search for drill guide: http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/200...ill-Guide.aspx

A google search for drill stop: http://www.instructables.com/id/Drill-Stop/