Hi Gang,

I plopped my plane down on the tail today and ripped out a CA hinge. Can I just use my slot machine to cut a new slot in the same spot as the old ones? Any suggestions gratefully accepted.

Thanks
Mum

Yes, I have cut a new slot along the old hinge (with a knife not the hing machine) And folded the new hinge and slid it into place and CA'ed it in. No issues...

Thanks Evan,
This was not nearly as difficult as I'd expected. Job is done. I pinned the hinges just to be sure.

Conventional wisdom says that if you put a new CA hinge in place of an old one, the CA will not soak into the wood because it is already CA'd. If you've pinned it and it seems strong, then you are probably fine. Just keep an eye on it.

Good luck

The easiest way to remove broken CA hinges is with a "hot knife". The hot blade melts through the plastic hinge and cured CA without tearing up the wood around it. The slot is fairly clean and the new CA hinge is a snug fit, so the repair is as good as new.

Gotta try the hot knife tip(Hopefully no time soon - but ill keep it in mind). I recently went through the trouble of replacing all of the hinge line wood in order to use new CA hinges.

Evan, did you have to fold the new hinge because the slot was now oversize and you wanted to double the hinge size or ?

I have a question about the hot knive. After one use, my first one (Tower Hobbies hot knive, uses #11 exacto blades) sort of froze up and it was really hard to get a new blade in or out. Is this typical after you use them?

thanks, GREAT idea about using a hot knive to open that slot up again!

Ernie

I think he was refering to "folding" it in from the perspective that other hinges were already in the rudder and hinging one side then the other was not an option because of this. When I have had to do this on a rudder, I found it easy to disconnect the pushrod, deflect the rudder to max and slightly "fold" the hinge. This way, you will sort of mirror the deflected surface and should be able to slide the hinge right in. I sometimes use a T-Pin right in the middle of the hinge so I can move it around a bit before applying CA.

The hot #11 blade works great!

J.

Thanks Johnny. Makes sense now. Do you fly a Mojo? What size???

Thanks,

Ernie

Ernie,

Sorry, been away for a while. I've flown all of them but never really owned the 25 or the 65. Right now i have an old 40 ARF and have been flying the Primo a lot! Great birds no matter the size!

J.

I had that happen once and cut out the CA hinges and put Robarts next to them.