Messerschmitt Bf 110 fuselage seams

[fingers]

Does anyone know whether the Bf 110 had fore to aft seams running along it's back and belly or were they smoothed out?

I've googled this and all the results were inconclusive and/or unclear.

[Vanroon]

There was a lap joint on the spine and belly. I'm repairing one now and was warned not to lose the line on the spine.

G

[Daniel Cox]

Hi fingers,

The rear fuselage was manufactured in two halves and the seam line is discernible on some although not many published wartime pictures, the same applies to the subsequent Me 210/410 series aircraft as well.

Cheers,

Daniel.

[fingers]

Thanks Gents', so we are talking about a fractionally off center very fine joint (a lap joint in this context being one on the other with a rivet through?) would this be discernible in 1/48?

[Stonar]

Thanks Gents', so we are talking about a fractionally off center very fine joint (a lap joint in this context being one on the other with a rivet through?) would this be discernible in 1/48?

Not quite. Here are some images from Erla and WNF. They are for the Bf 109, but fuselage construction was similar for the Bf 110.

First one that shows both a completed fuselage and one of the two halves seperate.

Joining the two halves.

Then they were finished.

Here you can see the join at the rear of the cockpit area.

another views of fuselage section undergoing further work.

You tell me if a model Bf 109 or Bf 110 in 1/48 should have a visible seam along the spine and underside. It's one of the few things over which I disagree with Lynn Ritger in his excellent Bf 109 Datafiles

Cheers

Steve

Edited December 3, 2015 by Stonar

[fingers]

Those are fascinating shots Steve, very interesting to see how the construction was carried out, I must say that I thought that construction would have been by cladding on to a frame but I suppose there is more than one way of skinning a cat.

Anyhow back to my 110 and some seam removal.

Thanks again everyone.

Dave

Edited December 3, 2015 by fingers

[Daniel Cox]

The seam is visible on various Messerschmitt aircraft of that era, that said and as shown below it is a subtle line.

SA-Kuva

Cheers,

Daniel.

P.S. The seam is also visible on the following images as captured by Alan Wilson on Wikipedia BF 110 D-0 (just visible top left next to the gaping hole) and Bf 110 F-2 or the following Bf 109 G-6 picture by reneblacky on the War Relics Form.

[Stonar]

Yes, there is a join there but until late in the war these aircraft were finished to a high standard. Early in the war the quality of the finish on Messerschmitt aircraft was commented on by the British.

It's not a question of whether the seam was there but how visible it should be on a 1/48 model. It is almost invisible on many full scale aircraft, including in that image of the Bf 110. The other two have had a hard life and do not represent airworthy service aircraft at all.

The vertical seams, whose construction I'll describe in a bit, were also quite subtle. This is a well known photograph from the Regensburg line:

Give the structure a good wallop and we can see how that seam was constructed, by tearing it apart.

Again, whilst there is a series of vertical seams between the fuselage sections it is an artistic decision how much these are emphasised on a model. I'm not a fan of the patchwork quilt look, but each to their own. You can see above that the intermediate skin was neatly let in and flush riveted to the adjacent one.

Finally I have, but can't find, a picture of a Bf 109, late in the war, at one of the many independant firms that reconstructed damaged air frames to return them to service (think of the AWM example). In it it is clearly evident that the vertical seams are being filled/puttied in an effort to achieve a better finish. I have no idea how common this practice was.

Now the engineering bit for anyone interested

The reason the skins were not attached to a frame (cladding onto a frame) was because the fuselage was constructed of sections to which some structural members were already integral. The report of British engineers on the construction of the Bf 109 probably describes this better than I can!

"The fuselage is unusual being virtually formed in two halves split longitudinally in the vertical plane, on each side of which the skin plates are made in one piece, alternate pieces being formed with Z-section flanges which themselves constitute the formers or frames to which plain intermediate frames are riveted. The plates are joggled. Top had section drawn stringers pass through clearance holes in the integral formers, the two stringers lying along the dividing line of the plates being wider than the rest to take two lines of rivets"

The wider stringers are therefore the ones at the top and bottom of the fuselage. In one of the pictures I posted a chap inside the fuselage, with the help of a young lady outside, is riveting the fuselage halves to the one that runs along the inside, bottom, of the finished fuselage.

It's a clever construction technique for a stressed skin monocoque structure which does away with the need to jig a number of frames and then rivet skins to them which was a much more usual method.

The British engineers, more familiar with the latter system, did have reservations. Their report commented that,

"The structure does not give the impression of being very strong, but strength could be added, for instance, by gusseting between the stringers and the integral formers."

It was strong enough and such strengthening wasn't applied to the Bf 109, I don't know about the other Messerschmitt aircraft of similar construction.

Cheers

Steve

Edited December 4, 2015 by Stonar