26 December 2014

Fuselage: Baggage area. Seat back hinges.

There are a set of six seat back hinges composed from AN257-P3 hinge.  The plans call for each of the six to be 10.5 inches long.  Much like for the elevator trim tab hinge, a locating hole is started on one end 1/4" from that end.


Following match drilling the 6 hinge pieces to the F-01447-L/R baggage floors, it turns out that the final hole violated the edge distance requirement (not sure if it applies to LP4-3 rivets, but seems it would).  I determined that this occurred because I didn't factor in the kerf of my band saw blade, so the hinge ended up shorter than 10.5".

You'll notice in the picture below that I used the wrong hinge on my first attempt.  The bottom hinge is piano, whilst the top is my replacement AN257-P3 (primed).  I didn't realize this mistake until my replacement AN257-P3 arrived.  I thought Van's sent the wrong one, until I saw it was marked properly.  So, I'll have to order replacement piano hinge now.  It's inexpensive, but because it's 6', shipping is high.  I might wait to consolidate that into the finishing kit.


When I went to match drill the replacement hinge, rather than risk hollowing out the holes in my baggage floors with more match drilling, I matched drilled the AN257-P3 to the piano hinge.

As an aside, here is a nice tutorial on structural vs. non-structural breakstem rivets.  At this point, I'm not certain which family LP rivets are, but it seems to be one of those listed at the bottom of that tutorial page.

No comments:

Post a Comment