elevator to wing alignment

Ken Cook wrote:           Eyeball from the rear of the plane. Sight it with the trailing edge of the wing. The Ring has little surface area to glue to so triangular stock under it assists glue area. I usually taper my fuse but I leave it quite full in thickness where the mating area of the elevator is. We have some that have been victims of mid-airs and the stab is at 15-20 deg angle. I don't use super glues. I use slow epoxy, this allows one to visit it every few minutes or so offering a tweak if needed. Any squeeze out can be easily cleaned off using a towel and rubbing alcohol.

As I posted that is what I normally do. How much of a misalignment will cause problems?

I have used this in the past to align things if I want it to be properly square. I have not used it in a while as I have only been building small 1/2a sheet wing planes for playing around with, so close is good enough for me. As well, my rc planes have been little electric foamies, and what foam did not have some kind of warps??? This is not the one I have, but rather a cheap one. I use the function with the crosshairs. Hope this helps.

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There are other versions. Home Depot has a Stanley one I believe that is around $45 dollars, and can be had quick should you want it now. Harbor Freight probably has something too.

It needs to be way off to cause issues. It can be tilted to either or side and not have a real bad effect on the plane. There are so many other issues that cause problems opposed to the elevator. The other thing is that if the wing isn't perfectly straight or aligned it can be an issue. One can actually cancel out the other or they can compound each other. Ideally keeping everything straight and level is the ideal situation but it doesn't always happen. The stab is the first thing to break off of the Ring in the event of a nose dive if caught in a head wind on landing. I can't positively answer your question as to how much is an issue but I can say that I wouldn't glue the elevator onto the fuse at a 45 deg angle. If it's tilted out of level 1/4" - 3/8" out of level, I wouldn't be losing sleep over it. If it's glued, break it free and re -glue. I have successfully done that many many time. pin it to the fuse to keep it registered and twist it until it cracks. This can break the fuse just under the stab so be careful as it's pretty thin there.


No matter how much one tries to make it perfect, it's a crap shoot. I dope all of my surfaces and over time, this twists the fuse and warps elevators and trailing edges. I use a heat gun to try and twist them back but it's only so so effective.

Ken Cook wrote:                 It needs to be way off to cause issues. It can be tilted to either or side and not have a real bad effect on the plane. There are so many other issues that cause problems opposed to the elevator. The other thing is that if the wing isn't perfectly straight or aligned it can be an issue. One can actually cancel out the other or they can compound each other. Ideally keeping everything straight and level is the ideal situation but it doesn't always happen. The stab is the first thing to break off of the Ring in the event of a nose dive if caught in a head wind on landing. I can't positively answer your question as to how much is an issue but I can say that I wouldn't glue the elevator onto the fuse at a 45 deg angle. If it's tilted out of level 1/4" - 3/8" out of level,  I wouldn't be losing sleep over it. If it's glued, break it free and re -glue. I have successfully done that many many time. pin it to the fuse to keep it registered and twist it until it cracks. This can break the fuse just under the stab so be careful as it's pretty thin there.


 No matter how much one tries to make it perfect, it's a crap shoot. I dope all of my surfaces and over time, this twists the fuse and warps elevators and trailing edges. I use a heat gun to try and twist them back but it's only so so effective.

That's what I wanted to here, then I will eyeball it. I normally get it aligned by eye pretty good.