Empennage Hinges
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2017 10:12 am
I really struggled with making the the empennage hinges per the plans. So I thougt I'd share the method (right or wrong) that finally worked for me. One of my biggest problems was trying to weld such tiny pieces successfully. To solve this issue I just made them bigger. Well not actually bigger. I made the components long enough to be cut into three finished hinges after welding. I also had trouble filling the gap between the two halves of the female hinge. The fillet would look alright but then when tested the weld was easily broken. So I wound up making a third piece, a thin strip to place between the two L pieces. The three were then welded with ease, even for a newbie such as myself. Lastly, since I am pretty good at making mistakes along the way, I bent enough pieces to make twice as many hinges as needed. I then picked out the nine best for my Piet and used the rest as test subjects.