Small Aluminum Tubing

[Ken Culbertson]

Does anyone know where to get really small aluminum tubing?  The smallest McMaster-Carr has is 1/16 OD which is about .06 ID.  I need .025-.030 ID.  It is for bushings for flaps and elevators using the European style hinges.

Ken

[Dan McEntee]

    K&S aluminum tubing comes in a 1/16" OD and that gives you about a .030" ID. Available where there is a K&S rack and alot of hardware stores have them.
  Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee
   

[Steve Berry]

Did you try this one?

Corrosion-Resistant 3003 Aluminum Tube Telescoping, 0.014" Wall Thickness, 1/16" OD, 1 Foot Long https://www.mcmaster.com/product/7237K12

ID is .035"

Steve

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[Ken Culbertson]

Did you try this one?

Corrosion-Resistant 3003 Aluminum Tube Telescoping, 0.014" Wall Thickness, 1/16" OD, 1 Foot Long https://www.mcmaster.com/product/7237K12

ID is .035"

Steve

Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

Thanks Steve.  I tried that one, but the ID is too big.  I wanted to use .025 for the flap wire but the slop is just too much.  Luckily, I found a short piece of really stiff stuff with a .030 Id and some .028 wire.  I can use that for the hinge bushings and the 1/16 (K & S) has the same stuff for the guides.  I am super impressed with the hinges on the two European planes Mike has and I am going to use them going forward.  Zero binding.

Ken

[Dick Byron]

When I was searching for some very small hexagonal brass tubing for a scale antenna for my P68C-TC. I called K&S and the man on the phone had a sample he send N/C. Give them a call, you might get lucky.

Dick

[Juan Valentin]

Does anyone know where to get really small aluminum tubing?  The smallest McMaster-Carr has is 1/16 OD which is about .06 ID.  I need .025-.030 ID.  It is for bushings for flaps and elevators using the European style hinges.

Ken

       Hello Ken
                              Can you post some pictures of the hinges? I would like to see how they are made as I would like to try them.
                                                                                                                                                                               Juan

[Miotch]

       Hello Ken
                              Can you post some pictures of the hinges? I would like to see how they are made as I would like to try them.
                                                                                                                                                                               Juan

Ditto here ....

[Lauri Malila]

Rather than aluminium, I'd rather go with Delrin or phenolic/cotton as hinge material. I don't know what you mean by "European style hinges", I've never seen them with aluminium. Metal-metal can wear quite quickly. L

[Ken Culbertson]

I don't make them quite like Sparky but this is the general theory.  I use a thin aluminum tube the full length of the wing to make them removable.  These hinges have almost zero friction which pretty much means no sticktion.



Ken

[Juan Valentin]

 Hello Ken
                     Thanks for posting the link to Storick`s excelent tutorial on how he does the hinges. He doesn`t mention what material he used to make them My guess is that they look like plywood but the video is blurry and I can`t be certain. I have seen that type of hinges on the Yatsenko Classic that a friend had. They were made out of plastic. I tried my hand at making something similar using a .250  6061 aluminum rod and made this one today. I think it will work using some .065 stainless steel wire for the hinge pin to avoid corrosion.  I inset a small brass bushing pressed in place to help with wear and it came out weighting less than a gram on my scale which only goes to one gram.

                                                                                                                                                                         Juan

[Steve Helmick]

Sounds heavy, Ken. As I recall, when Paul W. was showing his (then new) 2nd B-17 stunter, he used the 1/16" OD K&S tubing and 1/32" (?) K&S wire in a "piano hinge" arrangement, attached with CA & microballoons. Looked great and very friction free, but I'd guess it was a PITA to do. Also eliminated the need for hingeline seals. It would be a bit more important to get the horn's pivot tube concentric to the hinges. Paul may come along and say I got it all wrong, but that's what I remember.    Steve   

[Ken Culbertson]

Sounds heavy, Ken. As I recall, when Paul W. was showing his (then new) 2nd B-17 stunter, he used the 1/16" OD K&S tubing and 1/32" (?) K&S wire in a "piano hinge" arrangement, attached with CA & microballoons. Looked great and very friction free, but I'd guess it was a PITA to do. Also eliminated the need for hingeline seals. It would be a bit more important to get the horn's pivot tube concentric to the hinges. Paul may come along and say I got it all wrong, but that's what I remember.    Steve   

I did that once in the 70's.  Never did it again.  Wing flex really stiffened the controls so I scrapped the idea.  Paul's implementation was much better than mine.  I am only using the tubing to provide a guide to get the wire from hinge to hinge.

Ken