ZNLine Factory Enigma Build by Mark Novack

Here is the time to see if our first step of aligning things was well done. Actually, each slot has about 1mm of play, allowing a perfect tip fit with minimum sloppiness. The glue will stay put in the slot and not flow out the sides of the hinges.

Rudder hinging. Since the rudders where faced and roughed out with the stabs, all that remained was to hinge and taper into the fuselage. Please refer to the stab hinging segment for a detailed explanation or the hinging process. Nothing changes. This first photo shows the rudders aligned with the fin for establishing the hinge locations.

After cutting the slots with our Tettra guide and recessing the slots for the hinge pin, we mount the rudder to the fuse. Any hinge adjustments are made and the rudder is taped firmly to the fin, hinges in place.

The top and bottom of the rudder must blend in with the fuselage, so it is done in place. I start with 80 grit and go to 240 at this stage. Of course, our final sanding of the wood parts will be with 1000 grit, but that comes a little later. Here is the blended top.

The top from the side.

And the bottom. Notice the forward part of the bottom block flattens. This will nicely accept the MK tail wheel steering arm.

The big picture. Still to be done here to inlay the horn hard point pieces and beveling of both the fin and the rudder. After that I can final sand the rudder and it can wait until the fuselage is painted and then it gets covered. Speaking of covering, the big chief was cutting the covering for his Enigma, so the next couple of posts I will show you a special tool we use to get "the worlds best covering job". First, the rudder

What a day. Beveling and milling and routing and cutting and gluing and doing it three times over. The day started out by beveling the rudder. JP prefers to use the belt sander. I would like to clarify that this takes extremely experienced hands to machine sand to a perfectly centered bevel and be consistent again and again. It also turns out with perfectly straight lines. Most of us mortals, myself included, are better off using a long sanding block. It is very easy to turn a few weeks of work into a pile of toothpicks on the belt. Here is JP sanding out the first rudder of the day.

The bevel is checked and checked until it is just right. This one is just right. I did not succeed in getting great depth of field on the photo, so only a portion of the bevel is in good focus.

A control surface with too great a bevel angle has no durability on the beveled edge, so in order to get the proper amount of throw, a double bevel is necessary. Here goes the fuselage.

It is really difficult to add material at this point, so we work slowly. We check throw for one direction.

Here JP uses a false square, a tool that is used to equalize angles. There is no gauge on it, but it compares angles super easily. Next he will make the throw for left rudder match the gauge's setting.

Flip the fuse and do the other side. Lots of checking on this one.

We want 45 degrees left and right. No more, no less.

Other side.

Here is the simple tool. This thing can be your best friend, or if used by your boss to check your work, you may start to hide it!!!

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