Hinges Cloth

I am getting ready to hinge the control surfaces on the "Jumbo". Will Sig Coverall make good hinge material? The Perfect material is too old and won't hold up. The Brodak stuff has not held up that well either.
DOC

Contact Tom Morris (Tom's Building Service). He sells excellent quality polyester taffeta hinges. Install them using good old cellulose cement like SigMent or Duco.

You can go to the local fabric shop and buy the taffeta (it's the heavy, shiny fabric used on wedding dresses) for not much money. But Tom's hinges are perfectly precut and don't cost much, either. I wouldn't cut them for what he charges. Highly recommended.

Thanks for the info. -DOC

I just installed some of Tom's hinges on a profile trainer following the directions on www.tulsacl.com. They came out a lot better than my previous. I also have a yard of the same material that I ordered from Aircraft Spruce Supply.

Muslin. Cut with pinking shears. At all the Better Fabric Shops, near you.

The stuff Tom Morris sells is Dacron.

Hi Ty,
Dacron hinges? Didn't know what the actual material is Tom sells.
Do know that a friend USED to be a manager at the Burlington Factory in Raeford where they made the polyester we use as "polyspan". They use it for coat lining and it's dyed, but I don't know how.
Bill <><

HI Bill. Tom told me it was used to cover the wings of Ultra Lights. I believe he and his son are building one.

I have been using cloth from the hobby store I beleive its either nylon or polyester I can't remember. It comes in different thichness I get the thin stuff. I paint the entire sheet of cloth with clear coat and let it dry. After it has been painted with clear coat I cut it up and it will not come unraveled. I cut it into 1/2", 5/8", and 3/4" strips with a straight edge and a razor knife. I cut the strips into 2" long pieces for hinges. I paint the balsa with clear coat and let it dry. I attach the hinges to the balsa with Thin CA glue and I use a piece of polyethylene plastic to hold the cloth down for about 10 seconds while it dries and sticks to the balsa. CA glue will not stick to polyethylene plastic so it peals right off leaving the cloth flat. The hinges are perfectly flat on the balsa with no threads or edges sticking up. Next I use a putty knife and put the NEW type light weight sheet rock mud over the edges of the hinges. Sand it smooth and put 2 coats of clear coat over the dry sheet rock mud. The dry sheet rock mud soaks up the clear coat and gets as hard as epoxy. The hinges are almost invisable when I am finished.

While the Missus and I were at Wally World one night, I took her over to the fabric section. I told her I needed tafetta. We found some nylon tafetta that is thin and strong!
It goes on like any cloth hinge, but really is virtually invisible when a finish is applied.
I will try to post them on the Vulcan if I can get the pics down to 50KB without them getting so small you can't see them! LOL!!
Bill <><

Here's the hinges on the Vulcan
Bill <><

I have a friend that has his wife make hinges for him. If his elevator is 14" wide his wife cuts too pieces of cloth 2" by 14". She lays the 2 pieces on top of each other and sows a straight line right down the middle the full length 14" long. He glues one piece of cloth on the stablilzer and the other piece of cloth on the elevator like you would normal cloth hinges and it makes a continious hinge. The hinge is hinging on the thread that holds the 2 pieces of cloth together. It looks good but I don't trust it.

Hi Gary. Just for info, that method has been around for a lloonngg time, since the early 50's. It was used on early speed ships until they went to the figure eight sewn hinges. If done with light muslin, it will work fine for a small .15 to .19 powered plane.

35 years ago, when I partnered Lew McFarland in X-Cell Models, we sold "un-inked typewriter ribbon" for hinge material. It's tight-weave nylon, about .005" thick, ½" wide and comes on 100-yard spools. Or, at least it did back then. I never heard of these hinges breaking or wearing out.

Based on a fairly simple Google search, the stuff is still available.

I was curious, so I did the search. No go, unfortunately. A lot of people DO carry typewriter ribbon AND uninked stamp pads.

I now use only Rayon "Taffeta" for hinges applied with Ambroid (but SIG MENT also works well. Good thing about cloth hinges: you can apply them over-and-under for full length, so sealing the hinge line with FASCAL isn't required.

Hi Floyd,

I found extremely thin nylon taffeta. About the same as rayon I would guess.

As for sealing the hinge lines, I just put the hinges on as close as reasonable to each other for the entire span of the control surface. Pretty much have sealed hinge lines that way.

My only deviation in applying the hinges is that I use nitrate dope. Since I use nitrate for all my substrate, and attaching the covering, it does a great job of sticking the hinges. About as fast as I can put them on they're stuck.
Bill <><

Hi Isky,
If you'd like to try this stuff, I still have most of a roll. I'll be happy to send you 10' or so to try. I'm certain there was one source last week or I wouldn't have given the reference; it may not have been on the first (or even the 10th) page. Let me know . . .

in th bad old days we used linen it held up pretty well

I've been using old cotton bed sheets for several years with good success, but my new Brodak Nobler has Tom Morris hinges installed with nitrate dope. The nice thing about Tom's hinges is that if you get a little wrinkle you can shrink it out with a "Cote" iron.

jim any relation to Phil Kraft?

Hi Jim; No relation that I know of. I used to catch a lot of flak when I was flying R/C pattern, as I used to use E/K radios. I have met Phil a few times though, and he seems like a really nice guy. Those were the good old days in R/C. I really liked the Kwik Fli Kaos era. It was simple and fun.