I've left about 4" or 5" of an "arm" on this hinge, so it's kind of flexible that far out...just push the pin down and tuck it under the little clip, and it's retained nice and securely.
Ok, after all the final cleaning and alodining and unclecoing, I mixed up a batch of slurry. Or is it paste? I don't know. I guess there are technical terms for the different thicknesses of epoxy mixtures. Whatever, this is 105/206 and some micro (microballoons). Basically it's slightly thicker than Elmer's glue (and looks awfully similar). The goal here for me is to use a thin coat of this crap between the hinge and the cowl so that any minor inconsistencies in the cowl surface are filled with this gunk. That way, the hinge theoretically has a flat, consistent surface to bond against, and there's less potential for vibration actually wiggling the hinge and causing premature failure. Oh, by the way...NO, I didn't mix this crap right on top of my plans. I laid down wax paper, which I found to be an excellent protective surface to work on. Dried epoxy just lifts right off the wax paper.
I don't think I was ready for this process, but it went pretty well. It was incredibly reminiscent of sealing fuel tanks. You've got a mixture with a pot life ticking down, you've got sticky gloved fingers that can fumble with sticky rivets, and you've got clecos that need cleaning when you're done. Oh yeah, and you can't get this crap in contact with your skin. Yeah, this is just like sealing tanks. "Friends don't let friends build plastic planes." There's good rationale for that saying. This stuff sucks. But hey, it came out great, and I survived. Here's the aft edge of the top cowl, with both aft hinge sections riveted.
And here's the right side of the top cowl. That's all I got done tonight, since (a) the single pump pot ended up being just about right for about 5' of hinge, and (b) it was tacking by the time I got this far.
I was careful not to let the goop ooze up into the hinge eyelets...I did my best to keep the bulk of it at the bottom. You can see most of the rivets have a little coating of micro'd epoxy...that's because as the rivet was pushed into the hole, it took a little bubble of gunk with it. Then, as the rivet was squeezed, the epoxy kind of pooled around the rivet head. Anyway, this is minutia, but maybe it'll give you an idea of what to expect...I had no resources like these photos at my disposal until now.
Now that I've kind of dived in, I should be able to whip out the rest of the hinge riveting tomorrow in one or two more very small batches of white gunk.