Spot welded Fw190 fuselage

[Dennis Peschier]

The Focke-Wulf Works at Bad-Eilson produced 10 Fw190 fuselages that were spot welded instead of punch riveted. These fuselages were apparently delivered to a production line and used to produce 10 Fw190’s.
These aircraft went into service in 1943.
The firm never received any reports on their behaviour.
From a production point of view, the advantages of spot welding were not considered outstanding in comparison with automatic punch riveting.

Has anyone seen or read more about these 10 unusual Fw190. I wonder what happened when the crash-landed, did de break apart?

Dennis

[Graham Boak]

There might have been more production advantages had the aircraft been designed for spot welding in the first place.

My first company was Handley Page, where in 1969 I spent some time spot-welding Herald wing panels for spares stocks. The Herald suffered corrosion/drainage problems with its spot-welded fuselage but I don't suppose these Fws had the time or opportunity to build up quantities of "bilge fluids".

[Jukka Juutinen]

I´d never use spot welding for duralumin load carrying structures for it would invite problems.

[Revi16]

All F4U Corsairs were spot welded. No problems with them.

Regards,
Mike

[Crumpp]

Just about all aircraft in WWII were spot welded in places. It is commonly used to hold the metal in place on the jig initially. It was also commonly used on tank construction for aircraft. Wingtips are another commonly welded area.

I´d never use spot welding for duralumin load carrying structures for it would invite problems.

Depends on the alloy in question. The German duralumin alloys in general had a lower cupric content that lends itself well to welding applications in comparison to the US alloys. The German duralumin was stronger in some ways and more resistant to corrosion. It did not have as high a tensile strength due to the lower cupric content so construction tends to be heavier in the German airframes to compensate.

The instructions on the placements of welds and length of each seam can be found in Focke Wulf Flugzeugbau GmbH, Bremen's, Zusammenstellung der Punktzahlen u. Nahtlängen der einz. Baugruppen published in Jan. 1944.

Hope this helps!

All the best,

Crumpp

[Jukka Juutinen]

Well, the Brewster Buffaloes delivered to Finland had some non-load carrying structures spot welded. These welds were prone to failures and had to be replaced with riveted joints.

BTW, do you have data on German duralumin strength, compostion, elongation etc?