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Two or three hinges per aileron on Tony Nijhuis 46" Spitfire.


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Hi all. I would appreciate input on the following.

I am building the plane from the plan which calls for 3 off 8mm wide mylar hinges. This is my first build for many years and i have never used Mylar hinges before. I happen to have bought Kavan mylar hinges that are 19mm wide.

My concern with using three hinges is can i get them aligned accurately enough. So I was wondering could two 19mm wide hinges be effective. In this case I would not fit the centre hinge. If necessary I could stiffen the aileron by placing thin ply vertically onto the face of the aileron leading edge.

Thanks in advance for any advise.

Peter.

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I agree with Ken - but use three - a little redundancy never hurt! And its not so hard to align them just get the slots nice and central. If you are really worried you can always buy a slotting jig -- I have one but TBH I've hardly ever used it as I can never find it when I want it and it seems to all work quite well simply "eyeing them up" in the middle!

BEB

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Use at least three hinges. In terms of aligning the hinge slots, do you have a hinge marking and slotting tool? There are several on the market,

**LINK**

In an emergency you could make one yourself by just taking a small piece or ply, cutting a broad slot out of it and then driving a pin into the middle of the slot, nice and central. If you then offer the slot up to the trailing edge and give it a twist, then scribe a centre line along the trailing edge with the pin, that'll make sure your hinge slots are centralised.

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No decision to make, even with a torque rod use three. you would be amazed at the twisting an aileron can do if not supported correctly especially on this type of model. another serious issue is flutter. You havn't lived till you've had aileron flutter. Usually by the time you've registered what is wrong the whole trailing edge has shattered followed by complete loss of control and an expensive pile of wood is awaitng the bin liner.

If your lucky though you won't have damaged any innocent bystanders on the way down.

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