One of the things that I most like about F-Rsin kits and Welsh Model ones is that they make a lot of kits of airliners from before the time when all airliners became metal tubes with engines in pods under the wings. There's lots of variety in these models that makes for interesting viewing, to my eyes anyhow.
First off, the Avro Canada C-102 Avrojet. This is the first F-Rsin kit that I bought, on ebay. It attracted me because I'd seen the nose of the original in the aviation museum at Ottawa, not far from the nose of the Avro Canada Arrow. (The Canadians seem to like keeping the noses of things.) This was, I think, the first resin kit I made and it was a steep learning curve. The first time around I made a total mess of the paint job but I discovered that one of the advantages of resin is that paint can be removed with ordinary general purpose thinner and a toothbrush with no effect on the resin.
Next is the Bristol Brabazon. This is the first time that I knowingly spent over $100 on a kit but who would not want to have a model of such an interesting airliner in their collection. The F-Rsin folks were also on a learning curve with this one because the wings were molded from the trailing edge of the wing so the resin there was very thin and poorly defined. The only solution was to trim off half an inch or so of the trailing edge and replace it with plasticard that I then carefully sanded to shape. This was also one of my first experiences with Alclad II Polished Aluminium and there is quite a blemish on the upper wing that you can't see in this picture.
I like French aeroplanes and F-Rsin, being French, makes a lot of them. And me, being interested in French aviation, have made a lot of them. The Bloch 220 was a French contemporary of the Douglas DC-2 and looks a lot like it in many ways. One of these days I'll make the Czech resin DC-2 in 1/144 and it will be interesting to stand them next to each other.
The de Havilland Comet 1 is one of the F-Rsin plastic kits. I didn't have too many problems with this one.
The Dewoitine 333 is probably as far back in time as F-Rsin kits go and it is also, I think, one of the first F-Rsin kits because it includes decals for the wing control surfaces, something not found on later kits.
The Dewoitine 338 is, as you can see, a development of the 333. Not only that, the kit is also a later product than the 333 kit and is better crafted. No wing control surface decals either.
F-Rsin also make kits of relatively new but fairly uncommon airliners. One example is this Dornier 328-110. There is also a kit of the Dornier 328JET which I have yet to make. I used to have a Sasquatch kit of the Dornier 328 but, in comparison to this kit, it was so appalling that it ended up in the bin. I couldn't even find it in myself to sell it on to some other unsuspecting soul.
The things I should mention about some of these kits is that they are truly hand made. In addition to the resin the undercarriage is made out of brass wire, bent to shape and soldered where necessary.
Their Douglas DC-7C is another of F-Rsin's plastic offerings. I found this one a real bugger to get together. I suspect that the molding is done by Mach 2, and we all know what we think about that. I've been giving some thought to converting this kit into an earlier version of the DC-7 but that project is a long way off yet.
So, there's some examples of the kits that F-Rsin make. They might not be as detailed and easy to put together as the latest products from Revell and Zvesda, but they allow modellers to extend their interests beyond the most obvious and common of airliners, and I think that is a good thing.
I have another seven of so of these models, so if you want to see them let me know.
Leigh
