Hello Jim
Removing hinges:
"Any thoughts from those who have been through it would be appreciated."
I recently needed to remove hinges from my rudder. I too had concerns
about heat damage. I never got to heating, I supported and 1 good whack on
a piece of maple that was laying on the hinge removed it just fine. I had
my hinges sanded right through plating, the flox for most part remained on
aluminium!
I wanted to move the rudder to the starboard a bit, so added 2 BID and
0625" G-10 spacers under hinges. I replaced the side of the hinge with
rivet holes, refilled the rivet holes on the rudder and drilled new holes
through all. Worked great.
I used Redux/Flox to rebond hinges, and Redux/floxed the rivet heads then
put a very thin layer (lightweight model airplane cloth) of
Redux/fiberglass/peelply to cover the heads to prepare for filling.
A neat trick I wish I incorporated in whole aeroplane is to make sure to
mount half hinges on the movable control surface. This way you can pinch
hinge pin and force wear in the half of hinge that has nutplates on them
that is much easier to replace than going through what you are going
through on a finished part.
Ron Parigoris
|