I figured there has to be others outhere who have noticed the grey dust by the hinges. Do these metal hinges fail?

There are some pretty old T-34s running in our series and I haven't heard of them breaking. Usually the plane get's mid-aired long before they wear out. [:@]

How about black streaks going all the way back to the end of the control surface?

I've run several of them for years, and none have failed yet. They get loose, but I don't remember having one break. The high nitro and resultant vibration from a YS don't help matters, either. Mine are in Gold-class warbird racers (also World ARFs), and suffer far worse treatment than they would in a 2-stroke powered World T-34.

Nonetheless, they seem to work, and the best part is that you don't have to glue them in to begin with!

Sounds good.

I guess it looks like weathering if anything. To bad its not a WarBird.

Ditto to Tony's answer...... I've got a 5 plus year old Dago that was recovered to look like Precious Metal. The plane is running a 120 on it and I've had plenty of the "streaks" from the metal hinges on the rudder. They are still holding strong.

Jimmy Skids

UPDATE: although I'd previously posted that I hadn't had any of these hinges "fail" per se (and I still haven't), I've just run across some loose metal rudder hinges on a relatively new model that caused flutter and rudder/fin breakage.

I wasn't able to hear any flutter, but after having the vertical stabilizer pop loose in flight and the rudder break where the horn mounts, I'll surmise that flutter is responsible for this particular failure. The servo/pushrod/clevis/horn are tight, and the only slop in the system is in the metal hinges.

Again, this is a new model, barely a year old, with only 4 races worth of air time (that's not much). It's got the grey dust, and the hinges are loose. As a result of this failure, I won't use the metal hinges again.

are they aluminum?

I think they are Nickel plated steel or Brass. I am still removing the hinges from the elevators. I think if I guy cuts the barrel of the hinge with a Dremel cutoff wheel, you would be able to get them apart. I am hopeing that a soldering iron on the hinge will soften the glue enough to pull them out then. There is plenty of material to rehinge the tail surfaces except for the outer hinge. I am hopeing that I can get a robart hinge on the ends. I will use Radio South CA hinges for the rest. The metal hinges would most likely be fine, but the first hinge is about 1" over from the control horn. I wish WM let you hinge it yourself. Here are a few pics, showing the Dust from the hinge. I did not clean the top of the stabs, because I wanted to be reminded of the hinges before this flying season.