RE: monokote hinges
I like the way you apply your hinges, CafeenMan. It's a nice, neat appearance. I guy in my RC club taught me a variation to your procedure. I included the photo which I prepared on my (rudimentary CAD system) to illustrate what I'll try to describe here.
I apply as many 3/4" - 1" wide hinges to each control surface as will fit. The 1st hinge is ironed onto the top of the wing / stab and on the underside of the control surface. The next hinge is applied on the underside of the wing / stab and on the top of the control surface.
To accomplish this, I make up each hinge with half of the adhesive side face-up and the other half face-down. I overlap the adhesive parts where they join in the middle, the overlap being the approximate thickness of the wing / stab. For example, I want a hinge that is 2" long and the stab is 5/32" thick. I cut one piece of monokote to 1" length, and another to 1 5/32" length. I place the 1" length on the work surface with the adhesive side up, and I place the 1 5/32" length piece adhesive side down, overlapping the 1" piece by 5/32". I then iron the overlapping part together. And I have one hinge.
I also round the corners of each hinge, of course, to help prevent a corner from coming loose.
Placing each hinges side-by-side onto the plane as close as practical to the adjoining hinge fills that gap between the wing/stab and the control surface.
Having many hinges provides redundancy in the even that one hinge fails. If I have 10 aeleron hinges and one fails, I won't suffer a catastrophic failure while aloft.
In most cases, when I'm concerned about hinge material matching the color of the aircraft (MonoKote is bad about consistent colors), I use the clear MonoKote.
Mike