Charles-
OK...I'm up for air after wrestling with the club newsletter and playin a gig. I'm not quite sure what all your question implied, but perhaps the answer is somewhere in these photos of what I described. These are the hinges I just installed, but except for the earlier shots, I have no illustrations of sheeting the stab. This is the new one. BTW, the truss work only took a couple hours on a sunday morning, less time than arriving at a reasonably tapered elevator, after repairing errors; so the truss work is well worth the minor effort in achieving a torque resistant stabilizer.
1) Brushed-on, thinned "Sig-Bond" aliphatic resin glue in rectangles at hinge locations.
2) Parts aligned as a check.
3) Beginning attachment of hinges to stab. I chose to do the stab attachments first, because I like to draw a line for allignment, and that line will be under sheeting that won't allow ink to bleed through any dope finish. I may or may not sand the marks on the elevator away, since I plan of using West Systems epoxy. If I use just silkspan and dope though, I'll need to remove the ink.
4) All hinges anchored to stab. I just brushed on the thinned aliphatic resin glue in over the same areas, one at a time, to attach individual hinges. The amount was just enough to rise into the weave, but (usually) not to puddle. I pressed each hinge against the wood with fingers and removed excess. I then flexed the hinges to go to correct alternate sides of elevator when mated, as shown.
5-6) All hinges glued to elevator. The glue sets fast, and I did hinges in adjacent pairs to align the surfaces vertically, since the elevator had gotten thinned a bit too much (that's age related incompetence!). I first attached a pair of hinges near one tip, then at the center, and finally at the other tip. The elevator gets deflected after gluing each pair to ensure free movement, but this glue has set enough after each operation to be able to work over a sheet of waxed paper without making a mess or getting excess onto the bare wood.
7) Close-up of center, "warts and all." You can see the patch I had to put on elevator, when I sanded wrong in tapering - too good a piece of straight C-grain to waste. I had used the varying-diameter piano wire method to taper and still screwed it up. This was particularly annoying, in that experience is supposed to make one better at his! What doesn't show is that this is the second elevator made, the first one having been too light and flexible/unstable. The rectangular pieces where the horn attaches are pads to distribute attachment compression forces. Another thing not shown is that I had to laminate CF veil over the pad on the bottom in order level it, where I'd inset it too deep - another dubious first on this project. Two steps forward and one back. The horn-bolt holes are through dowels inserted vertically between the pads. Oh, heck, I'll show that too...
8 ) Earlier step, recess for pad, showing dowels epoxied in.
9) ...and trial horn attachment.
10) Another close-up. What I ment about finishing the elevator is that these hinges and other imperfections will be covered with either CF veil, .56-oz FG, or silkspan. With any choice, sanding should remove the covering above each hinge, pretty much leveling the whole surface. For this plane, whether the hinges show is inconsequential. But I can't see a problem for top contest level stunters to have that area completely filled in and smooth with cloth hinges.
11) Finally, this is the end cross section as it appears after the hinging, but before sheeting of the stab and contouring the section. I don't know why the elevator t.e. appears warped; it isn't. I've completed three this way, and this is the worst...
SK