ZNLine Factory Enigma Build by Mark Novack

We use jigs for everything in the factory. When we produce prefabricated airplanes, perfect is the only acceptable standard. Jigs ensure that perfection and consistency can be achieved. You will see more jigs as we continue. I forgot one jig photo which is used to capture the landing gear and drill them out. The bolt pattern on it comes from the same CNC routing file as the bolt pattern on this jig.

OK, first fit the plate. It fits inside. The rear edge and sides must be beveled so it fits as flat as possible. However, due to the seam and some carbon weave overlayes, the inside of the fuselage in not perfectly flat so we use a generous amount of epoxy and micro balloon. We scuff it a bit with 80 grit on the inside, pour out about a tablespoon of epoxy mix, lay our fitted plate inside and clamp it in place for 24 hours.  I want to mention here that 2 hour epoxy will do fine for these strength critical areas. Even half hour is good, but working time can be to short as sometimes a piece must be removed, adjusted, replaced, etc. However, we use the 24 hour because we are building multiple (five at this time) airplanes, it give a 45 minute to one hour working time, and we move back and forth to different projects, so the cure time does not adversely affect our schedule. Here is the plate clamped into place. We have a hardwood plate pressing the fuselage flat from the outside and another plate inside pressing the gear plate against that. The epoxy/microballon mix fills all of the gaps around the plate edges and fuselage so that there is very high strength with minimum material.

Here is where things speed up for a moment. We remove our clamps, feel for a nice fillet around the plate. If there are gaps, then we shall add a bit of epoxy and again let it cure. If the fillet is fine, then we drill our holes. Our jig is properly setup to place the gear exactly in the center of the belly pan gear cut-outs. However, for the homebuilder, remember to fit the belly pan and mark the edges of the cut-outs on the fuselage. No need to open the belly pan cut-outs any more than necessary. Keep things beautiful!!!  It takes just a couple of minutes to drill the gear in the gear jig and the fuselage with the fuse-gear jig. Here is JP drilling the fuselage.

Before enlarging the holes for the blind nuts, we fit the drilled gear. This allow small corrections to any misaligned holes. If we drilled the enlargements and fitted the blind nuts first, then the gear holes would have to be opened to allow the bolts to fit. This detracts from a professional appearance. In this case, the jigs ensure that everything lined up perfectly, so we remove the gear and open our six holes on the fuse for blind nuts. Here we are pre-fitting the gear.

Almost time to get back to the wings.

And to take a group photo.

From behind.

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