My ATR project

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My ATR project

Postby F-27pax » Fri Aug 29, 2014 3:58 pm

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The Avions de Transport Régional is available in kit form from Welsh Models and F-Rsin, in both the ATR42 and ATR72 versions. F-Rsin also offers/offered a resin version of the ATR72 that I made several years ago. In my humble opinion the resin version is the easiest to make but more expensive, of course.

I've probably got the Welsh Models kits around here somewhere but I thought I'd have a go at the F-Rsin plastic kits. Having made their DC-7C kit when it first came out I knew what to expect of these ATR kits, and they lived down to expectations. They have the look and feel of having been formed in the Mach 2 moulding machine. This means these kits do not fall together, in fact they have to be carefully and lovingly turned from not-very-precisely formed parts into useable pieces to urge them to make a decent model. These kits are not as good in quality as some limited run kits, but they are possibly better then vacformed kits so they're really the only show in town and you just have to work with the kit quality.

The moulding is a bit haphazard in places and some of the sabre shaped propeller blades in the ATR72 kit are so badly formed that it was just as well that i also had the ATR42 kit which provided some spares. Some parts are also very fragile and even in the process of taking the photo of the ATR72 to show here two propeller blades disappeared. (This is going to be a real challenge.)

The kits also have the typical post-modern French instruction sheet that is only partly useful. For example, I have no idea how the main undercarriage doors in the kit are supposed to work and did my best by looking at lots of photos of the real thing. The same thing goes for the undercarriage which, so far as I can tell, simply can't be assembled the way the kit suggests. Never mind, there are plenty of photos available on the interweb of these aeroplanes and they generally show you how things should go, despite some of the oddities of the kits.

The decal sheets that come with the kits are excellent and you get quite a few options. For the ATR42 I chose the Brit Air version and for the ATR72 the Air New Zealand version. As it turned out, I came across Ric Warcup who makes a lot of interesting decals including for various Virgin Australia aeroplanes. So I used them instead. The same decal sheet is included in both kits for the de-icing boots, windows and etc and they are very good. However they are also very thin so handling them is a challenge so, after having a few tense moments with the first item I tried, I put a coat of Liquid Decal Film over them just to make them a bit easier to use. I'm sure that the Brit Air decals are about ten percent bigger than they should be. (Later I recalled that I'd had the same problem with the resin ATR72 and had scanned the decals for that kit, reduced them by about ten percent, printed them on decal paper and used them. I should have done the same with the decals for this model. On the other hand, ric warcup's decals proved to be excellent.

Overall, these kits are makeable if you know what you are doing. Even after a decade or so of struggling with kits like these I still found them a lot of hard work. Still, they are the best game in town so, get on with it if you want models of ATRs.
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Re: My ATR project

Postby hrtpaul » Fri Aug 29, 2014 6:47 pm

They look pretty good to me mate. Well done :)
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Re: My ATR project

Postby Graeme H » Fri Aug 29, 2014 7:56 pm

Very nice ATR's

and your assumption about Mach 2 doing the moulding is probably correct, as the last time I went to Telford in 2011, I was surprised to find Didier (Mach 2) on the same stand as Laurent (F-Rsin)
I had never met Didier before, but have known Laurent for about 10 years at that time, and he worked with another guy who did resin moulding, but he missed that year.

As for the Undercarriage, remember that I have a lot of photos of airliners, and can usually help with photos
my ATR is Macairs, and can be found on the AirlinerCafe site, also have a few private photos of Air Queensland's ATR

http://www.airlinercafe.com/list.php?c=ATR

and the same photos on Britmodeler

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/inde ... tr-42-500/
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Re: My ATR project

Postby RayS » Sat Aug 30, 2014 9:16 am

Nice result on both Leigh
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Re: My ATR project

Postby F-27pax » Sun Aug 31, 2014 9:57 am

All better now.

Image

Thanks for the photos Graeme. If only one could make models as good as the original. Perhaps one could in 1/48 or bigger. I had a pretty good idea about how the undercarriage worked but the puzzle was how to achieve that end with the pieces of plastic in the kit. Oh well, we do what we can. Now back to something simple like another 747.
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Re: My ATR project

Postby Graeme H » Mon Sep 01, 2014 10:03 am

Very good result, are those Richard Warcup decals?
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Re: My ATR project

Postby F-27pax » Thu Sep 04, 2014 12:31 am

Yes they are. I've got a few decals from him and they are very good and useable. I can't seem to find him on the interweb these days so I don't know what he had been producing of late.
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Re: My ATR project

Postby Graeme H » Thu Sep 04, 2014 11:37 am

He does seem to still be active on Britmodeler, where his last post was early August, maybe try a PM there
I think he got a bit upset when they moved his Dreamlifter thread from Airliners to Work in progress

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/inde ... 216-richw/
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Re: My ATR project

Postby F-27pax » Sat Oct 04, 2014 12:50 pm

Here's one I made earlier, back in 2007. It's the earlier F-Rsn ATR72 which, as I recall, went together well. The interesting thing was that although the main parts were resin the undercarriage is made out of small pieces of soldered brass rod which means each part had been made by hand. That's dedication The decals turned out to be too large for the kit so I scanned them, reduced them by about 10 per cent and printed them out. The result wasn't perfect but at least the decals fitted.

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I don't expect to make any more.
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