My LHS gave me a sample of a new CA glue from Bob Smith Industries that is made for CA hinges. Its called Insta-Flex and it is a thin CA that remains flexible when cured. It is being marketed for use with CA hinges. I have tried it on several sample pieces and I think it will be a big seller. The bond is extremely strong and because it stays flexible I think the hinge will perform better and should be less likely to fail. The test pieces I have made up are very smooth in motion with no popping or cracking when the hinge is moved, even to extreme throws similar to 3-D airplanes. (I used SIG easy hinges on my test pieces) The new glue is being produced in bottles with a Teal colored label and cap.

I may have to look into that... Sounds like a winner if it does what they claim!

Yea, I was impressed with the test pieces. I am getting ready to hinge a U-Can-Do .46, so that should be as good a test as any. I will let everybody know how it works.

Have any of you guys tried Zaps Hinge Glue. I tried it on CA hinges and this stuff is unbelieveable.
I put some on a few slotted test pieces of light weight and thick grain balsa. I took a pair of vice
grips and tugged, pulled, twisted and the hinges would not budge. I evenutally had to rip the wood apart to see the part of the hinge that was glued. The hinge still had wood attached.

Works well on Dubro pinned hinges and Robart Hinge points too.

The thing I like about it the most is you have plenty of time to position the control surface and get a super tight fit. Any bleeding glue is easily wiped up. I can load up a syringe and glue all the hinges in minute on the control surfaces, everthing gets positoned perfectly and once its dry in 20-30 minutes I attached them to the trailing edges and tape tightly for 20-30 minutes while I do other more important things. I've been building models for years and I hated hinging more than sanding, cutting, measuring, painting, gluing, cleaning up, mowing the lawn, cleaning dog poop! You get the point I'm sure, but this hinge glue almost makes hinging one of the aspects of building
I look forward to.

So far, so good!

Yeah hinges that dry instantly are a pain. Make one mistake and you're screwed. Like a hinge misses a slot? Or the gap is too big? Too little? I'll look for that next time I'm at the LHS.

Joe

Tower has the Pacer hinge glue: $2.89/ 1 oz. bottle

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXCX67&P=K

Jim

This new flex glue is great. I have used it on several airplane's hinges with excellent results.
There is also a gap filling flex ca that is clear as well.

could you use this glue as normal thin ca on your build?

I used some Pacer Hinge glue on some Du-bro plastic hinges. And its fine for the 1 st ones you put in. But when you have to do all 4-5 at once you apply glue in hinge slots to install the aileron it sets up fast so work fast it may of been a hot day. ? I do like the easy clean up with water or windex. I may go back to 2 hour epoxy just to give me the proper work time.

Hmmm... For years the industry has been telling us that CA hinges are great and if they fail, it's always because they weren't installed correctly. Anyone that posts something on RCU complaining about CA hinges, gets flamed by dozens of messages saying, "They always worked for me, you must be doing something wrong."

So, I say, if CA hinges work so great, why would someone have to develop a special CA for them?

Possibly for people who don't understand how to properly install them. It makes the process easier, just as the Pacer Hinge Glue is easier to use than epoxy.

Thanks for the info. Would probably give it a try.

I don't think that's for CA hinges... I think that stuff is a polyurethane glue for regular pinned hinges.

The world is full of companies marketing products that solve nonexistent problems.

Its called continuous improvement

I just finished hinging my U-Can-Do .46 with the new "Instaflex" C/A glue from Bob Smith Industries. The first thing I noticed was that when I flexed the surfaces for the first time after the C/A had cured was there was no "snap, crackle or pop". The surfaces flexed smoothly and were not stiff at all. The bond to the wood is excellent and I have pulled on them as hard as I can and they are there for good. The hinges flex more freely with this glue and should require less torque from the servos to move the surfaces.
To answer Mike in DC, if you take a small piece of plastic laminated with fiber and saturate it with thin C/A glue it is going to get stiff (and sometimes brittle) and its flexibility is going to suffer. This new glue seems to bond equally as well yet it stays flexible to allow the hinge to move in its full range of deflection. Its common sense, we want the hinge to bend freely and when you soak it with regular thin C/A it gets stiff and doesn't like to flex.
I am very impressed with the new Instaflex glue and will be using it on all my C/A hinges.

Sounds like it may be used as a structural glue as well i.e. for gluing wood

I don't know if you guys read my post on GP CA hinges that I installed in my pattern plane but on the 2nd. flight the left elevator pulled out taking the left horz. stab with it. The result was a real big mess. This was the first time I had used CA hinges on this type of plane and I thought I was smart enough to install them the way I did with the pinned hinges which can be pushed close in so almost no gap is present. Well I soon learned that I needed some gap for the flexing of the control surface. About 1/2 way into the 2nd flight it let go and I was lucky enough to have 2 people standing next to me because what they saw happen was different from what I saw...the examination showed the Tyvek had pulled of the top and botom of all 3 hinges on that side and all that was left was the shiny plastic hinge material.
I thought for several days that it was the fault of the hinge but after posting the problem here on RCU the question came up about the amount of gap I was supposed to leave to allow the control surface to flex but I had left none. I did a pull test on all the control surfaces and it checked out ok but under flight load it was not ok.
I guess the moral of the story is that after 30+ years in the hobby I still have plenty to learn...