Removing cowl hinges

If one wanted to do away with the top and bottom cowl hinges and switch to screws / camlocs what would be the best way to remove the hinge from the cowl? Can you just cut off the eyes on the cowl side and drill through the hinge body or can the hinges be removed after they have been glassed in? Seems that a lot of damage could be done to the cowl trying to get the hinge off.

[RV7Guy]

The least amount of damage would be to grind the backside of the rivets with a Dremel or similar tool and punch them out. If you are misaligned trying to drill them out you will make a mess in the glass quickly. After removing, clean thoroughly and fill with epoxy and micro filler. You could do this after you fit the backing plate for the Skybolt type fasteners.

I am using Skybolt fasteners on the top, on the cowl joint and the bottom. I went with the hinge for the lower cowl sides. These are expensive but I believe they are great looking and very functional.

Darwin N. Barrie
P19
Cowl completion