Boss248

First off let me tell you guys that this is the first time I have ever used CA hinges on anything bigger than a .40. Secondly I am not crying and bashing Great Planes.
I finally got a chance to fly a pattern plane that I designed today and on the second flight the left elevator left the plane and took the left horizontal stab with it. Well needless to say I did not get to land it. I had 2 people standing next to me and they saw what happened so at least I did not have to try and remember what happened in the last 3 seconds of flight. I used GP CA hinges but before I decided to install them I read several how to's and felt they would work. Well as you can see in the pictures below all the papre/fuss came off the hinge (the plastic middle section) and off came the elevator. All that is left of the hinge is the slick plastic section where the paper/fuss is supposed to impregnated onto. There is no way the paper/fuss could have stayed on because the plastic underneth it is totally slick.
At first when walking up on the wreckage it looked like the CA hinges had pulled out of the wood but upon closer inspection that was not the case at all.

Do you ever get that funny little voice in the back of your head that says "This Won't Work"??? Well I got that feeling several times but I did not listen to myself.
I am showing you guys this in hopes that if anyone is using the GP CA hinges to be aware of what happened to me. I will call and talk to customer support in the A.M. to hopefully make them aware that there might be a bad batch of hinges floating around...and no I don't expect them to pay for a damn thing because it is just one of those things that happens.

This was a costly lesson(2-Hitec 5645's, O.S. 91 FX with Tuned Pipe, JR PCM Rx)...[]
This is the first time in 30 years of RC that a hinge has ever failed on me ...I always use the Robarts or the Du-Bro 1/4 scale hinges.

The pics below might be a little fuzzy but you can see where all the paper came of the hinge surface...as a matter of fact you can scrape the paper with your finger nail.

TLH101

My Feedback: (90)

Jeez, here we go again.

FlooredCOBRA

A good and cheap idea would of been to pin your hinges. It prevents situations like that from happening.

Boss248

Terry...thanks for that intelligent responce..Geez here we go again is the smartest thing you could come up with???

Floored Cobra...so tell me how this is my fault...the hinge is defective pinned or not pinned, the fact still remains the paper came off the hinge...did you even look at the pictures ?? I lost a very nice plane today because of the defective hinges and no amount of pinning would have helped...

I knew I should not have posted this...I was only trying to help someone down the road so they might not have to go thru this.

FHHuber

having used Great Planes CA hinges a BUNCH, and abused heck out of them... I've never had them fail without good cause.

I'm not saying its impssible that you got some bad hinges... I just haven't seen one before.

I HAVE seen them pulled out similar to yours from aileron flutter. The ailern gets to making a buzzing noise as it wiggles up and down VERY fast. This is yanking the hinges up and down, and can exert enough force to delaminate the layers of the hinge. You THINK yo slowed down enough and stopped the flutter in time... but you land to inspect anyway... and the aileron comes off with a gentle tug.

FlooredCOBRA

I did not mean for it to sound like I was pointing fingers or being sarcastic. Was just helping out with idea.

Was mentioning that it does help prevent from them ripping out due to failure. I do see what you mean though about the paper coming off. It shouldn't of done that period.

I have seen that before though but never had any rip out of my plane before. I got some kind of oily liquid on them. When I went to rub to see what it was the paper came off. I kept my hinges in a small plastic bin with an assortment of screws horns etc. I guess some how the oil from the screws rubbed off on them. Only thing I can think of on my part.

Boss248

I was at 1/2 throttle just coming out of a turn and there was no flutter...I had slowed down trying to get a feel for the correct throttle setting for trimming and then it happened...no warning just POW...I thought I had broken the horizontal stab because what I saw was the left half of the stab leave the plane but the 2 people standing with me said the elevator half came off taking the left half of the stab with it. I wish you guys could see the hinge up close...it tells the whole story real well...you can see very plainly where the paper stuff just pulled away from the plastic inner hinge material. But ha..what the hell I have been doing this long enough to tell it was a lesson learned...guess I need to call Superior Balsa and get more wood headed this way. I think pinning the hinges as Floored talked about might have helped but I will never know. I wil use the method that has worked for 30 years, I am sure CA hinges work because I see it all the time at the field...that is what is so puzzling to me...I guess I just made the wrong choise of hinge makers.

Kaos Rulz

Boss - I'm sorry to hear of your loss. Can you repair, or is it a "total"?

There was another thread talking about the same situation with the GP hinges losing the paper. Definately call and see if a bad batch hit the market. It's quite possible.

For what it's worth - I always use CA hinges and have never pinned them. I've never had one pull out, however, with all the talk about pinning, I think my next plane will be.

I'd be curious to hear what GP has to say about your experience. They're a good company and have always stood behide their products.

MinnFlyer

My Feedback: (4)

Ditto to everything that Ed said.

There WAS a recent thread describing this same occurrence. GP is a very reputable company, and should be held liable. I have used CA hinges for years (Many brands including GP) and have never pinned, nor have I ever needed to. This simply should NOT have happened, and I would contact GP immediately.

Boss248

Minn and Ed...thanks for the recall of the other post in regards to GP hinges. I shot an e-mail to them but A properly worded phone call I will be making later on. I used to work for a large chain hobby shop for 10 years so I got to know and met some of the people at GP and they always told me to call them if I ran across something that needed thier attention. I hope it is only a small batch of hinges that are bad so no one else suffers the loss of a plane. In all the years I have been in this hobby I have never heard of the Radio South CA hinges loosing there paper like the GP hinges did...I will use them in the future because I know the method works. The way my luck has been running lately I will be out of flyable planes in 6 months[>:]

tommy s

My Feedback: (55)

RADIO SOUTH CA hinges are the best. Period!!

tommy s

Scar

My Feedback: (3)

Please help me understand what you're saying happened, here. I see 3 fuzzy pictures of the stab only, no beveled surface in the pictures. I read the term about "delamination". The pictures of the stab clearly have a part of the hinge left in, are you saying it is only the clear plastic part left?

Are you saying the two pieces of Tyvek ripped, on both sides of the hinge?

Is the remainder of the two pieces of Tyvek fabric still in the stab?

Are there two remaining pieces of Tyvek fabric still glued to the tapered elevator surface?

If so, that would mean that both top and bottom pieces of Tyvek ripped at the joint line. Please clarify.

I would appreciate it. Thanks,
Dave Olson

bhole74

I have come across several threads concerning GP CA hinge failure. I had some fail myself, but they didn't pull out, they broke straight across like they had been cut with a knife. I then went through all my planes looking for bad hinges but found no more. I will be sure and inspect all my hinges closer and more freqently from now on. Luckily I didn't lose a plane. If you seal the hinge gap, this will give a little added protection, perhaps enough to get it safely on the ground. Sorry to hear it!

Boss248

Dave...what you are seeing is the horizontal stab half...sorry about the fuzzy pics...my digital is a rather cheap on and does not do good in close up shots. The Tyvek was ripped off both sides of the hinge inner piece. The remaining Tyvek is stuck in the elevator half..there were some hinges still in the stab halves but some were pulled out just like the elevator halves themselves.
I did talk to GP and while they were sorry it happened they say I am the first person in 4 years that they have been selling the hinges to have a problem.
I had some of the 2"x9" hinge stock that came from the same package as the hinges I used in the plane so I did some testing using my fingernail and I was just barely able to remove any of the Tyvek until I wicked some thin CA on a 3/4x3/4 " piece and it was pretty easy to scratch the Tyvec off....dry non CA'd Tyvec was very hard to to scrape off. I wish I had some answers if only to make me feel a little better about the failure...and that is really what this was..a failed CA hinge.
I am pretty tough skinned after 30 years of flying and have another of my designs being plotted and will start cutting wood tonight but to loose one of my own scratch built designs in only 2 flights set me back...but only for a little while. Who knows...this may never happen again to anyone but I wanted to make people aware so they could make thier own judgements about any future CA hinging they might be thinking about.

Sorry for the fuzzy pics but my Kodac 2.2 mpix is only good to about 8" close ups. I guess you just have to see the hinges in person to get the full drift of what happened...hell I am as confused as anyone right now but I will be using different hinges for a while and maybe leave the CA hinges dor different projects in the future.
The only thing I might have done wrong was..dang..I can't think of anything I did wrong...oh well live and learn but I appreciate all the concerned responces...

I just got an e-mail from GP...here it is...a canned reply but a reply non the less[:-]

Dear Valued Customer:

Thank you for your Email.

Thank you for your input. We have forwarded your email to the Great
Planes product management team to look into this.

We hope you find this information helpful. Should you have any further
questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at this
email address. (Please be sure to copy all previous emails into any
future questions.)

DID YOU KNOW that our web pages now all contain FAQs? (Frequently asked
questions) Please drop by and take a look! We hope you'll find the
information helpful and valuable to you.

Sincerely,

Hobby Services
3002 N. Apollo Dr. Suite 1
Champaign, IL 61822[/i]

Scar

My Feedback: (3)

Thanks for the elaboration. It sounds to me like the fabric actually tore, on both top & bottom of the plastic - and that makes me question the material! That Tyvek stuff is pretty much impossible to tear. Having multiple hinges on the same surface, all torn both sides.... I'm having trouble believing that was Tyvek. Which it should have been.

One more question, though. When you hinged this... was there any gap at all? I ask because a tightly hinged elevator, with no gap, would cause some serious stress on the fabric, with each big deflection. Not being cricital, just trying to learn more about the possibilities, here.

Sorry for your loss. Thanks again,

Good luck,
Dave Olson

Chris Moon

My Feedback: (8)

I have used the GP and Radio South and H9 hinges. The GP and H9 are just cheap copies of the Radio South hinges. The only ones that have never failed have been the Radio South. I have had them on pattern planes with hunderds of flights with no failures. On the other hand , I have used GP and H9 on .40 sized planes and had failures within 10-15 flights.

Azcat59

Boss, sorry to hear of your loss of a pattern plane. I flew pattern 11 years, from Novice through Masters, and most of us in the west were using the Hayes living hinges. Put them in with 1 hour epoxy and forget them. They held up even when pattern planes were flying 125 mph or more, wide open on the down lines.

Clair
AMA 15654

Boss248

Damn Dave...I did have it very close...touching (gap closed)...I always was able to get a near gappless joint with the other hinges and I noticed that when I CA's these the elevator was kinda hard to deflect...I just never made the connection...I thought it was becasue the CA had stiffened up the Tyvek. I am almost sure that is what happened now...damn do I feel stupid[:@]
I would have never made the connection...looks like I goofed...DAMN. Well thanks for all the help guys...but I will use Radio South CA hinges and do it right. When I did the scarpe test this morning I was having one hell of a time trying to get the Tyvec off and I was really shocked to see how much of it was gone of half of the CA hinge but it looks like Dave has solved the Mystery...thanks Dave..I think[&o]

NOVAflier

My Feedback: (21)

Pinning it would have probably saved it. I have had this happen when there is not enough CA on the hinge and it has not wicked properly. I use a T-Pin, cut it off flush, then put a small piece of covering over it. THEN I seal the gap with clear Ultracote. Never had a problem since I did this. I lost a Sig Kadet Senior to aileron flutter, and the hingle looked just like that...Learned my lesson.