ORIGINAL: CloudSkipper
1) the T-Pins: What is the purpose of these during hinge attachment? The instructions say to pierce the hinges "through the center" with the T-Pins before inserting the hinges. But the hinges have rectangular holes in their centers. There is nothing for the T-Pin to stick into. And what is the purpose of the T-Pins? From the way it's described, they don't appear to temporarily hold the hinges in place in any way or serve any purpose.
If you feel the need to do it at all, then they're actually wanting you to put the pin through the centerline of the hinge. Anywhere will do. The centerline would be where the hinge bends. The idea is to keep the hinge from moving into the slot on one side farther than the other side as the two parts being hinged are pushed together. In actual practice, the hinges often have nowhere to go in lots of slots. Put hinges in those slots and how many slots are left? And in most slots, they're held very tightly in one of the two slots that hinge is going into. It doesn't take but one or two assemblies to get the picture and work out a safe way to just stick'em in and go. For example, ailerons on most 40 and 60 size ARFs are solid wood. I stick the hinges in there first. Some won't even go halfway. If they do, kewl. If not, the slot gets cut just deep enough for half. You actually need to inspect all the slots on an ARF for centering and for slots that are in at an angle. In the last year, I've not assembled an ARF that didn't have slanted or off center slots. So checking them for holding the hinge tight enough for assembly isn't really a hardship.
I've also penciled a line on each hinge flat at it's centerline. It helps show if the sucker has been pushed one way or the other. Doing this awhile has taught me that step is about useless, as is the pin deal. For me at least.
2) wicking of CA: About how many drops of CA do you normally end up putting on a single hinge? ... that's not a point of confusion for me necessarily but would be nice to have an idea before doing it.
More than one. Depends on the size of the hinge actually. On the last 60size, I hit each one with two drops (the bottle was putting out big drops) all along one side of the wing. Flipped the sucker and went down the other side with two each. You will get a feel for how much almost right away. The first couple ought to be sucked into the slot right away. And truth is, one drop spreads out very well. You want to do both sides without pause. 2nd side probably doesn't need as much because CA has tremendous penetration power, but it's cheap and almost no weight.
BTW, you really need to keep overflow in mind. Bottles are a pain to dispense from. Just turning them up to dispense can spit some drops. Lots of LHS have squeezy-bulb dispensers. They're like eyedroppers only one piece and some kind of vinyl. They work excellently well.
If you get runs with CA, Acetone wipes the runs off with no sweat. Well, no sweat within a few minutes. Slight effort after awhile.