Need to remove the CA hinges from elevator. Any ideas? Debonder? Cut them out? Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Bear

Just cut the old hinges off with a knife, when your ready to reinstall, cut new hinge grooves. Unless they were installed very poorly, they wont come out without ripping the wood apart.

Flap is right as long as you have room to do it but....... you can always bend the control surface down and cut flush with the hinge. In other words you have to cut the glue off of the hinge. Then bend it the other way and cut the other side of the hinge from the wood. This is a difficult way to de-hinge and will require a double hinge material to take up the gap. Just stick the
#11 blade into the hinge slot right against the hinge and 'saw' and 'wiggle' until you cut it loose. You will have to pull a little hard to disinlodge the hinge. Then to the other side before you pull. It is not an easy job. For the best hinges, use Sonic tronic hinges. They have a slot in the middle that lets the CA travel on four edges. Use two hinges on the tip of the ailerons and four others. in other words, five hinge slots to maximise the effectiveness. Six in all. bird. Ask me what I mean if you don't understand. Thanx

What do you mean by this , BigBird2002 ??
I want to learn too and I am not sure what you mean by the following:

QUOTE:
five hinge slots to maximise the effectiveness. Six in all. bird. Ask me what I mean if you don't understand


Thanks

ricdel, what I mean is that there should be at least five hinges in an aileron. Evenly spaced. And what I mean by six in all, is that there are to be two hinges side by side at the tip within at least 1/2 inch from the end. This will prevent most tendencies of the hinge to break as a result of flutter. Never follow manufacture recomendations if there are less than five hinges. This goes for the other control surfaces also. Three or more in the rudder, five in the elevator if it is one piece like the eagle II or three or four on each side if they are split. Never use nylon hinges that do not have pins in them. I have seen too many planes lost because of them coming out in flight. The epoxy will not hold. They must be pinned through the wood in each surface and that is a hastle when covering. The dubro style of hinge with the pin should be reserved for the bigger birds and then I will opt to put in CA hinges. If you do it right, you will never loose a bird because of CA hinges. As I said, Sonic Tronics slotted hinges are my choice. Hope this cleared it up. If not, please continue to ask questions till it is. Many thanx. bird.

I bought 1/2" to 1" diam circular saws that fit in my dremel tool. I got them at a Great American Train Show which always has a great selection of hobby tools. I think they are quite dangerous and I make sure I have a good grip on my tool and safety glasses with a close fit and side shields. They take an old CA hinge out in no time. Then I decide whether to use that old slot or make a new on with my Hobbico ca slot maker. Good Luck!!!!!!!

Ramcharger, you are right as far as dangerous goes. I have a scar on my right hand from 1980 when dremel still made them. I was beveling a hinge slot out for dubro pinned hinges on a sig twister u/c and the saw end was down and the cord was up. Well, you can imagine what happend when I inspected my work and the hand relaxed........Ziiiiipppppp! From the heal of the hand up the little finger and then it decided to whip back down for about a half an inch. Fourteen stitches!! I shutter every time I get one out and I make sure that I remove it immediately after I am finished with it. Whew! It still makes my hair stand up just thinking about it.
As far as slotting with it, unless you are using nylon or some other kind of thick hinging material, I always use a #11 blade and that is after it is covered. I never slot before covering. If you hog the slot out you will have to press it together to make good contact with the CA hinge. If you have never had any problems from this method, as I figure will be your rebuttle, it is just a matter of time. The wood should be tight against the hinge. That is if you use thin CA as I do otherwise you might use medium but you will have to hinge one side at a time and that is risky! Check you later bud. Bird.

BIGBIRD2002 you gave me an excellent explanation.
I am just amazed at the amount of knowledge a person can pick up on RCU. It can be a constant learning experience if we want it to be.
Thanks,
Richard

ricdel, you are more than welcome. If there is anything I can help you with just let me know. By the way, you should see what antifreeze in a crock pot will do for varnished engines. If someone will tell me how to post pictures I can show some before and afters. Many thanx. bird
If you like, you may e-mail me at [email protected] . I can at least show you the pic's there. It may be a while before I respond this time. It is snowing like crazy and I need to go get some muffler bolts for my snow blower. Later dude.

You are the 2nd person I know with a serious injury caused by the Dremel saw. A club member had a bad incident also with his hand. I had one of the blades come apart. I never did find all the pieces. None hit me but they had to moving pretty fast when they left the Dremel tool.

Dremel had to quit making them because their warning label didn't say 'HEY STUPID, DON'T CUT YOUR FINGER OFF WITH THIS TOOL! So, 'STUPID' sued dremel and won because he cut his finger off! Obviously, this guy came from the shallow end of the gene pool. bird.