Thanks. This has been MY experience with them and I'd rather fly, than repair! LOL


This is good advice. KEEP AN EYE ON THEM. It would be a lot of work to re-hinge all your planes....and who knows, you may be one of the "lucky" ones! heh heh

As I stated earlier, only half of the elevator on the trainer has been repaired, as I won't fix what ain't broken... in this case the other 1/2!

I was fueling the trainer when I noticed it. This may be a good time to give all your surfaces a little love tug.

Gary

Do I get a vote for every time a CA hinge has failed in flight? That might load the survey too much.

I've had Sig easy hinges break in flight. Great Planes hinges have done the same thing, but more often.

It's reached the point that I will not use anything but a pinned hinge in any plane that I want to keep or think a lot of. Robart or Dubro doesn't matter. They only fail during the impact phase of a crash.

Rajul,
I don't use the crayon method. I used the hinge slotting machine on 1/2 of my planes and I really like it. I started drilling the hole for the CA on my last two planes but never did it in the past. I use about 8 drops of CA on each side while flexing the control surface to maximum deflection. I don't wait for one side to dry but imediately turn it over and soak the other side, once the CA dries it won't whick or take anymore CA so you only have one chance to do this step. I do use a pin to make sure the hinge goes into each surface halfway. If I end up with a gap just big enough to slide a piece of paper through it I am satisfied. I don't touch the surface for an hour after I glue it and then just cycle the surface back and forth by hand to loosen the CA on the hingeline. I also buy small bottles of thin CA so it is usually fresh. On sealed surfaces I don't get the iron on the hinge for fear of melting or making it brittle.

These are the things I have done in the past and they have served me well.

The 1/4 scale has about 50 flights.

Thanks BB, I learn something new everyday. Have to be more careful with my trim seal iron, although I have yet to experience any problem with ca hinges myself

you know the saying if it aint broke dont fix it ! I agree with basinbum.. Im not going to start fixing things that arnt broken ! I havent had any of my hinges fail as of today !! and hope I dont ! I do flight check my planes befor I fly and yep pulling on the control surfaces is part of my normal preflight checks !
I cant believe that all hinges on a given surface will fail at the same instant with no visibal warning if a flight check is done.
I see it as breaking is hinge failure and pulling out is the builders failure..
Im still going to hit the LHS this morning and get that bag of robart hinges ! and the 3 kits I have in the shop are going to get robarts and this way I can see what fails first with my installs. I also want to add I have 2 sig kits with sig hinges and 2 GP kits with GP hinges and the rest are fast hinges sold from a independent guy.. also I used my GP slot machine on all but the first kit I built SIG Kadet LT 40 and that was done with a xacto.. man I love this hobbie!!