Tail Q & A

• The hinge strap material that is listed in the plans is 7/8" .063 the strap material supplied is 1" . If they go to the trouble of sending "strap" verses cut your own out of sheet. Why not make it 7/8" strap? Or should the hinges be 1"? There is no bushing shown for the bottom rudder hinge attach. Is there one there?

Date: 95-04-20 21:29:36 EST

From: SKYBOLT55@aol.com

1" fits Doug's hinges why change it? He mills the nylon to fit ... we have a source .....

• I started laying out the horizontal stab today and was wondering if you could make the H-tube bushings with one long bushing per side ,align, finishweld, then cut the bushing in half. Also on the H-tube sleeve I built them out of .058 instead of .049 just because they sleeve so well. Is there a reason, like it will be to hard to mount the stab onto the H-tube unless you have some play between the two. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated with fitting info.

Date: 96-03-13 22:11:18 EST

From: ACRO240Y@aol.com

We use .058 on our airframes. Leave enough bushing to have 1.5 degrees of incidence in the horizontal. What your doing sounds just fine.

Date: 96-03-13 23:45:37 EST

From: ClearProp@aol.com

I mounted my H tube as you described and had no problems at all. The trim tab works smooth as silk.

Hints and Tips

Re: Rudder/Elevator bushings

Date: 95-06-11 00:53:25 EST

From: ClearProp@aol.com

After talking to several other builders I decided to go with nylon bushings on my rudder and elevator hinges instead of the 4130 tube as shown in the plans. I called Doug Dodge with my ideas and he thought they were fine. I am lucky to have access to a pretty good machine shop so I spent some time last night spinning them up. In order to keep them from slipping out from under the strap ( the 4130 version is welded to the strap) I built them 1 1/16" long out of 1 1/8" nylon. I then cut a 7/8" wide channel down to a 1" diameter. This left a 3/32" shoulder on each side of the hinge that is .063" tall. This will hold the strap in place. I will weld the top retaining collars on before mounting the bushings and use a heat sink and shield to put the last collar on. (this should stop me from melting the bearings). One thing about working with nylon. It expands quite a bit when you are turning it in the lathe. I bored out the inside to .882 to allow some play over the .875 spar tubes. By the time the bearings cooled down (they did not feel that hot to begin with) The diameter had changed to .874. I had to rechuck them and take another small cut. I fit them on the tube tonite. They are very smooth, and they even look pretty good .

Re: Rudder

Date: 95-06-12 23:38:03 EST

From: ClearProp@aol.com

Well I bent up the rudder tonite with little problem. When I laid it out on the table nothing would fit right. I was very puzzled. Everything was to dimension and the ribs were made right off the plans. That is when I found out that I used an old drawing and made the bottom rudder rib 1 inch longer than it is supposed to be (at least it was longer). It only took about 2 min. to make it the right size...no problem. I studied both drawings. They both have the same date, drawing number and revision number. How do you get the right drawing when you can't tell which one to use? I will be more careful in the future, and I hope that I save someone this problem in the future.

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