Hinge line problem

[JimWoo50]

I have a slight cosmetic problem with the hinge line on the side of my RV-6 cowling. During the hinge installation I either cut the cowl crooked or allowed the hinge to slip out of position. As a result although both ends of the hinge line of the cowl are flush and nice but for about 14" in the middle of the line the hinge lugs are visible through a gap in the cowl halves of about one eighth of an inch. I tried filling with small dabs of Super Fil but it made the cowl halves harder to fit together and I was not confident the filler would stay on. Any thoughts on how to build up the cowl halves to hide the hinge lugs without gluing the cowl together or making it harder to put on would be appreciated. Thanks. On the last 10%.

[mcattell]

You can buy wider hinges from Van's and then just offset the hinge towards the top or bottom. That's what I did to hide the hinge line from sight completely. Hopefully you haven't installed the rivets yet. If the holes are already drilled you could just back drill the new hinge to match.

[gereed75]

Don't know how far along you are but - use the larger hinge and you can simply slide the hinge up or down about 1/4 inch so that the solid aliminum portion of the hinge is backing the cowling gap. No reason that the hinge line has to be centered in the gap.

I went one step further and riveted the hinges to an aluminum strip and then riveted /bonded the strip to the cowl. This strip is about 1/2" wider than the hinge itself. Position the assembled aluminum strip and hinge so that the wider aluminum strip fills the cowl gap. (also gives more surface area for riveting and bonding to the cowl)

If I can figure out how to insert a drawing, I'll try.