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-   -   ZNLine factory: Enigma Building (https://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-pattern-flying-101/534573-znline-factory-enigma-building.html)

MarkNovack 02-07-2003 11:05 AM

We pause to admire our work.
 
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And to take a group photo.

MarkNovack 02-07-2003 11:07 AM

Another angle
 
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From behind.

MarkNovack 02-07-2003 11:12 AM

Last things first?
 
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One of the first things we did was to simply install out wheel pant reinforcement. We will use the MK wheel mounting system and a pair of MK 55mm light weight wheels. This is the easiest and cleanest wheel pant system we have found for these airplanes.

Tuomas Tanska 02-07-2003 01:14 PM

ZNLine factory: Enigma Building
 
If you are interested, be welcomed to see my Enigma project!
Go to my homepage (link below) => F3A =>Enigma and there you have it.

I hope it'll bring you some ideas and I'd be very interested to hear what you guys think.

MarkNovack 02-07-2003 07:02 PM

Back to the wing.
 
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Tomuos, I checked out your site a few weeks ago. Nice site. Best of luck for the 2003 season. You have the right airplane for the job.

OK, lets do a little more wing work.

At this stage, I shall install the servo boxes for the airlerons. We have these boxes specially made for us with a variety of dimensions for various servos. In this case we are using boxes for both the Futaba S9150 wing mount and the new S9550 servo.
The 9150 boxes fit right into there pre-routed mounting holes after rounding the corners. The 9550 boxes need a 1.5 mm balsa skinning for a tight fit. Cutting the holes a little bit oversized allows the individual builder a wide variety of easy servo choices by simply scabbing the boxes. The next follwing few photos are the two boxes and being mounted.

We also use these boxes on our giant scale airplanes and have never had one pull out.

MarkNovack 02-07-2003 07:04 PM

Another angle
 
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Side of the box.

MarkNovack 02-07-2003 07:06 PM

ZNLine factory: Enigma Building
 
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Here is the 9150 box installed. (I edited this to change photos. This gives a better comparison to the 9559 box than the other photo)

MarkNovack 02-07-2003 07:14 PM

And the 9550 box.
 
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Notice the deeper set rails and the balsa scabbing along the ply sides. Each side is scabbed with 1.5 mm and the ends are scabbed with 1 mm for a perfect, tight fit. Again, we are using 24 hour epoxy. The German made epoxy soaks deepy into the wood give the bond great depth. It took me only about one hour to get all 10 boxes seated and glued into the five wings. After they dried, I sanded them perfectly flush with the wing. They can also be marked and sanded to match the curvature of the wing before they are glued in. I will probably use the second method, mark and sand, in the future as it takes lots of care to not touch the sheeting when sanding it after installation.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 12:36 AM

A little step.
 
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This takes just a couple of minutes. The tail wheel mounting block. This is not rocket science here. A small piece of light ply (some may insist upon heavier wood, but again, we have never lost a tail wheel assembly), a dab of epoxy, and we have finished the landing gear mounts. This piece is about 8mm from the end of the fuselage and about 6-7 cm long. It will hold the screws for the MK tail wheel assembly.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 12:44 AM

One more small step.
 
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This is by no means required, but we decided to add it for longevity's sake. A small carbon ribbon bordering the opening of the landing gear slots on the belly pan. This takes a little bit longer than one would think to display a neat appearance. It takes a little finesse and patience to work the ribbon into a short and tight rope just on the border of the cut-out. After it is finished, it looks as though it was molded right into the original form. We used epoxy and a 1cm wide brush to apply the epoxy and coax the ribbon into position. Unfortunately, I did not properly focus the camera on the subject and instead the wings in the background are sharper, but I think you will get the idea.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 12:57 AM

Now things start to get fun.
 
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Here is when we begin preparing to mount the wing to the fuselage. Things are done a little out of the normal method here. Most common kits have the builder mount blocks into the fuselage, then center the wing on the fuselage and drill everything out together.

Here, the wing bolt mounting plates are predrilled. For the home builder, they would serve as a jig for drilling the wing holes, carefully centered on the wing, one behind the leading edge, one in front of the trailing edge. In the factory, we use a CNC routed jig with the correct bolt spacing, with a perfectly scribed centerline marked. This jig has been carfefully fitted the the Enigma wing and has balsa blocks on the front in a V shape and a blasa block on the rear that lock it to the wing, centered. Of course, after the jig is seated, we take out the ruler and measure wing tip to bolt center on each side, and gently tap the jig into perfect alignment. This method has some real advantages which I shall mention as the steps proceed. For now, lets align the jig and drill the wing to accept the bolt seats.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 01:01 AM

Another jig view.
 
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A straight on view. In these photos, you can see how the jig locks to the wing.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 01:10 AM

Now we drill holes.
 
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However, we don't use a drill. The hole in the jig is sided for the locking lip on this router. We are using 10mm OD, 6mm ID, carbon fiber tubes as wing bolt seats, so the router is fitted with a 10mm bit. JP will let the router run up to full speed, then sink it onto the wing, and he lets is come to a complete stop before raising it from the jig and going the the next hole in order to prevent any unwanted movement. These are some of the more critical holes we will make, and although it's a quick procedure, there is a very particular method of ensuring no mistakes are made. Just for trivia's sake, the building of the jig took several prototypes and a long days work to make it just right.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 01:13 AM

And voila...
 
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...here is a wing with four holes, each perfectly symmetrical with it's opposing hole.

IMPORTANT BUILDING NOTE: Notice that these holes are drilled perpendicular to the 0 degree incidence line of the wing and NOT perpendicualr to the bottom wing surface.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 01:22 AM

OK, now for the bolt seats.
 
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Carbon fiber tubes, cut to approximate length on the radial saw. Notice in this picture that I have notched these all around. I use a bench grinder, but any dremel tool of hand file will do fine. The bench grinder allows me to knock out 20 of these in just a few minutes. After I have notched them, I wipe them off with a damp towel and then wash my hands with lots of soap. One, the fibers are irritating, but, more important, is that our customer's wing is not smudged all over with carbon fiber dust. The long ones are for the front, the short for the back. I will glue them in with epoxy and microballoon mix and use enough that I must wipe off seapage. We want this epoxy to penetrate all around.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 01:33 AM

Bolt seat installed
 
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This photo shows the bolt seats installed. After this dries for a day, we will use the router to shave them to the exact length that we want them. The top surface we will leave 1mm sticking out, and the bottom surface (where the bolt head will sit), will be shaved perpendicular to the rods length. Later, we will bevel a carbon laminated light ply washer to finish off the bolt seat. Four, 6mm nylon bolts will hold the wing to the fuselage.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 01:35 AM

Another shot of the same.
 
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Here is our flock of wings, almost ready for mounting on their fuselages.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 01:41 AM

More to come.
 
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Well, it's been a great building week so far. We will make a few more holes around the stab area before mounting the wing, but for now, it's time to feed the dog, feed the Mark, close the shop and get some sleep. We'll continue tomorrow with the beginning of the stab area.

Pipo is ready for bed where he will dream of going to the flying field and chasing moles and mice!!!

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 09:18 AM

OK, we are back for more.
 
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Although the stab will not actually be fitted until the wing is on (of course), we can go ahead and mark and start the holes for the tube. We have changed building methods here for these five airplanes. We were forming an epoxy tube socket around a waxed stab tube, but we have found a very tight fitting socket for our carbon tubes, so we have switch to the new tube.

The stab center line and the stab tube location are mold marked into the gelcoat on the fuselage already. We highlight the location with a fine point felt tipped pen. Here is a photo of the markings for the stab tube and the incidence pin.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 09:25 AM

Drill the starter hole.
 
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OK, this is another one of those very critical holes. The incidence pin is 3mm, and the tube socket is 10mm. We will start with 2.8mm for both holes. We want the incidence pin to fit nice and tightly. The tube socket hole will be opened up with a conical Dremel stone. Lets make the starter holes.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 09:33 AM

And open the tube socket hole.
 
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OK, using the Dremel tool, the conical stone, a good eye and a relaxed hand, very carefully open the socket hole to a nice fit around the tube socket. Work a little bit at a time and keep checking that the hole is centered on the crosshairs. Even without the wing, if your holes were properly centered, the stab socket should sit within a degree or two of parallel with the wing saddle.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 09:39 AM

Here, I"ll just fit things into place.
 
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This is a temporary fitting to make sure the tube and the pin sit parallel and that the tube/pin support plate fits nicely. Once we like the fit, we can glue in the support plate. Again, the incidence pin and sockets will not be glued in until the wing is completely mounted and parallelism is perfectly established. Here is the trial fitting.

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 09:54 AM

Add lets glue in the support plate!!!
 
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It's getting exciting now. In just a couple of days the wing and the stab will be mounted and the airplanes will take it's form. Still, there is lots to do.

The stab tube/incidence pin plate fits gently against the socket and pin. We don't jam the socket of pin against the upper edge of their holes with the plate as we need a degree of two of shifting room when we push the stab into place and align it with the wing. It just sits gently against the tube and also greatly stiffens the fin. The plate gets glued in with epoxy/microballoon mix. Be very neat here with the epoxy. No extra fillet is needed. Remember, any extra weight in the tail will require 5x the amount in the nose to correct a tail heavy condition.

To ensure perfect bonding and parallelism, the plate is gently clamped in place with large balsa blocks and our favorite, gentle clamps. The picture is very self explanatory.

(NOTE: The order between this step and the wing mounting step is not critical. If you look closely, you can see that two of the fuselages have the wing mounts blocks already installed and one does not. The critical step comes when aligning the stab to the wing. I will post that after I fully cover the wing mounting stage.)

MarkNovack 02-08-2003 09:59 AM

Last photo until Monday.
 
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Here is a final closeup of this step. I will now take a day off with the girl friend and her monsters, take them shopping, buy them real Amercan Cinnabons at the PX, walk the dog, and do all of those other things that make life worth living. Monday, I shall return to the shop and get some detailed photos of the wing going into place. Then we shall roll along until the airplanes are ready to go into the paint shop.

See you Monday!!!

gavoss 02-08-2003 06:51 PM

ZNLine factory: Enigma Building
 
Mark, I'm sure I speak for many RCU viewers. We really appreciate the 'build-a-long.

Did you get my email on the Pursuit? gv


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