>Has anyone out there got a neat trick for bending the hinge pins? They're so
>stiff I'm rather nervous of bending or damaging the hinge
Jeremy - this is probably too late, but I, too, am at the stage of
assembling some hinges and have this day constructed a hinge-pin
bending tool (HPBT) which works fine for me.
I took a length (I had a piece about 200mm lying around spare) of
.25" mild steel rod, popped it in the lathe, drilled the end 2.4mm
(sliding fit on hinge wire) then swung the topslide and chamfered it
45 degrees (like sharpening a pencil with no lead).
To use, slide the tool onto the protruding end of hinge wire and
bend, (preferably in the plane of the hinge to give minimum
likelihood of bending the hinge), until the chamfer touches the end
face of the hinge. Repeat at opposite end while ensuring the first
end doesn't migrate out. The hinges are actually remarkably resistant
to bending (and to drilling as well if you don't use a sharp drill
bit!). I actually fitted and bent my hinge pins for the trim tabs
_after_ clamping the first halves of the hinges to the straight-edge
for line-up. (I found it useful to be able to "sight" through the
hinge holes from both ends to ensure line-up before inserting the
pins.)
You can have my HPBT after I've finished with it (not sure when that
will be, though), or if you don't have the resources to make your
own, you might try the local model engineering club - or there might
be someone at your local PFA Strut with a lathe. If all else fails,
I'll make another one & pop it in a Jiffy-bag, but I don't want to
become known as a source for such things!
>the only
>tool I've found that makes any impact on the pins is a large hammer
I've tried to limit my use of hammers so far in this project, but I'm
sure that once we get past the cookery & dressmaking stuff and onto
real engineering ....
regards
Rowland
| PFA 16532 EAA 168386 Young Eagles Flight Leader 017623
| Europa builder #435 G-ROWI e-mail <rowil@clara.net>
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