ZNLine Factory Enigma Build by Mark Novack

...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 perpendicular to the bottom wing surface.

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 micro balloon mix and use enough that I must wipe off seepage. We want this epoxy to penetrate all around.

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.

Here is our flock of wings, almost ready for mounting on their fuselages.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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/micro balloon 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.)

Here is a final close-up of this step. I will now take a day off with the girl friend and her monsters, take them shopping, buy them real American 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.

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