heritageflstc

My Feedback: (6)

I have a 13 foot DC-10 that I am building. It is blue foam covered with fiberglass and epoxy. What is the best way to hinge the flight surfaces, using hinge points? Any help?

dmcmike

My Feedback: (14)

Install 'hard points' at the hinge locations. I assume that with a 13' wing [X(] you'll have a bit of 'meat' at the hinge lines. I've used harder balsa and/or Bass for these, along with pine dowels. Just build the wood into the hinge locations during construction, mark the hinge locations, drill and fit the hinges... then bevel the surfaces. I find it's a bit easier to center the hinge holes on a flat surface than after it's been beveled.

cyclops2

I am at the point on the big blue foam scratch builts, to convert to 2 strips of thin Poly & Ester cloth that is sewn down the middle and run a THIN bead of Vaseline down the length of the stitch.

Position the cloth on 1 surface and bond it with the paint. Position the 2 nd surface and paint.

No alingments of hinges or hinge blocks.

I get nuttier the older I get.

Mustang Fever

My Feedback: (2)

I use Monokote to hinge ailerons and flaps. If you're not concerned about scale hinges, it's the easiest and most reliable way to go.

If you're interested, reply back and I'll post some pix of how to do it.

heritageflstc

My Feedback: (6)

I would like to see the pics of doing it that way. But would it be sturdy enough for turbine power?

Mustang Fever

My Feedback: (2)

My eyes saw "DC-10" in your post, and my mind saw "DC-3".

I don't know about turbine power. At the speeds jets reach, the critical factor would be how well the hinge kote seals to the kote on the wing. If the forward edge ever started to lift, the slipstream would get under it and peel the whole thing off. The fastest bird I ever did this with was capable of around 110mph, and I had no problems.

Here's some pics of how it's done, though. You start with the wing and the surface already covered, unlike what you see here. Make sure the kote on the wing is CLEAN. Fingerprints will prevent kote from sticking to kote. (I use denatured alcohol to wipe it all down.)

1. Start with a 45 degree bevel on the bottom side of the surface, so that it's leading edge comes to a fairly sharp point.

2. Iron down 3 strips of covering on the top of the wing.

3. Hold the surface tightly against the wing, and angled down as far as it can go.

4. Iron the 3 strips to the surface.

5. Invert the wing, and deflect the surface up so that it's LE and the wing LE form a flat surface. Hold the surface tight against the wing where it pivots.

6. Iron on 3 more strips as shown.

The final step is to put a piece of kote on spanwise, top and bottom, over the initial strips.

heritageflstc

My Feedback: (6)

MCMIKE, Do you have any pics or diagrams of this hinging method? The thickness of the surface where the hinges are located is about 1" to 1 1/4" thick- on the horizontal stab.

iron eagel

I think you will find that a series of Robart hinge points for each surface will work the best, given the stress they will encounter I would put them every two inches on center along each control surface.

I have used them epoxied to foam wings for prop driven airplanes that had foam wings without failure. On one I folded the wings back when I broke the spar pulling out of a power dive and to my amazement the control surfaces stayed intact.
However given the size of your model you may want to use wood "Hard Points" for your application.