In today’s review we look at Special Hobby’s kit of the unique Hispano Buchón.
Subject: Hispano Aviación HA-1112 Buchón
Brand: Special Hobby
Scale: 1/72
Rating: 2/5
The Kit
Looking at the raw contents of the kit I set my expectations rather high; there is a decent amount of detail in the plastic, including recessed panel lines and even photo-etched parts for some areas, particularly inside the cockpit. The engine exhaust pipes and wing-mounted machine guns are made of resin and provided in a separate bag. The information booklet, though a little roughly translated, is legible and actually quite informative. Instructions are clearly labelled and I had no difficulty when following them.
The kit gives you parts to build the Buchon in two configurations; either the original Spanish Air Force service aircraft or the modified variant which was deliberately made to look more like a Bf 109 for the 1969 film “The Battle of Britain”. This is because Special Hobby actually made a separate kit which provides decals for the Spanish Air Force variant, and it’s differentiated by a lack of nose-mounted machine guns, a bomb load and different machine guns for the wings. This kit clearly labels which parts you do (and don’t) need to use, so you shouldn’t have any issues between working out the two variants.
On the sprue each piece is numbered as you would expect for any model kit, however in this case I found it unusual as these numbers are not marked on the sprues themselves, but rather on a sheet in the booklet. It gave me some confusion at first but once you get used to it there’s not much of an issue, aside from the mild pet peeve of flicking back and forth between pages when looking for the right part!
The Build
Building the kit itself started fairly simple and went smoothly. The cockpit was assembled quickly, though I skipped using a lot of the provided photo-etched parts as they basically cannot be seen on the finished model. I didn’t leave them out entirely, though, as it gives me some experience in dealing with photo-etched parts for any future builds that need them. Needless to say it went as I expected - fiddly but nothing too frustrating. I also faced no notable difficulty fitting the two fuselage halves together, save for some rather nasty seam lines that would need sanding down.
This is where, in my experience, the quality of the build started to go downhill. It started with a large gap between the main fuselage and the separate piece that is fitted to the top of the engine cowling, which would certainly require filler to be hidden.
Additionally, the air intake is a separate piece that attaches to the bottom of the engine cowling in the same manner, and it features two very small photo-etched parts that I faced a lot of pressure in making sure they looked right. Even so, there was nothing too problematic at this point.
Fitting the wings was a cakewalk, however I experienced great difficulty with attaching the two radiators into them. The kit gives you the option to have them open or closed, but it’s a tight squeeze and fitting them properly was a real problem for me, even after several rounds of sanding the parts - it certainly reflected on the overall quality of the model, but thankfully the paint job seemed to sweep this problem under the carpet a bit.
Adding the undercarriage also proved to be far more stressful than it would normally be. When removing the main gear legs from the sprue, both of them snapped in half. While this could have just been a personal mistake, the plastic felt more delicate and sensitive on this kit, and I just feel like it didn’t respond well to me cutting it out. After multiple attempts of trying to fit the separated parts together, the undercarriage legs were barely recognisable, and what I finished with is a far cry from how the undercarriage actually should look. The difficulties I faced fitting the landing gear is also why my Buchón is leaning over to its port side slightly.
Propeller Pandemonium
The issues I faced with this kit didn’t even end here. Thankfully, the propeller and prop spinner fit together fine, but there was an underlying issue that the kit doesn’t mention in any way whatsoever, and there’s some historical background; and I think it’s crucial that anyone building a Buchón knows about this.
The kit provides you with four propeller blades, which seems normal enough; in fact, under Spanish Air Force service the Buchón did indeed have four propeller blades. However, as quite rightfully pointed out by one of my Instagram followers, Messerschmitt 109s did indeed only ever have three propeller blades. I was about to go on a lecture about how the Buchón was unique to the standard 109, until I looked at the real aircraft I was basing my kit on...
Yikes.
...and so it would seem, many of the Buchóns I looked at that touted German liveries to represent 109s, do indeed have three propeller blades instead of four. This was probably one of many modifications made to the Spanish Buchón fleet by the film crews to make them resemble original Bf 109s, in this case a design change that likely wasn’t picked up on by the kit designers. This meant going back to the nose and removing propeller blades and repositioning myself; it’s not as simple as just removing one blade and calling it a day, either.
Final Stages
Moving on, the resin parts provided for the guns and engine exhausts also proved to be a pain. Like the regular plastic, they seemed to be very sensitive and didn’t respond well to being cut - one of the wing-mounted machine guns flew out of sight when cut and was never seen again, resulting in me using a rather disappointing looking spare piece of sprue as a quickly-devised replacement.
One of the engine exhausts managed to be removed safely, but the other split into three parts, one of which was also never seen again. The remaining pieces were painstakingly reassembled and fitted into the engine cowling, with another handy spare sprue piece replacing the missing exhaust pipe.
Thankfully, this labour of love was now complete. The canopy responded well with my paint and I had no issue with attaching the additional pieces, such as the pitot tube and radio masts. What turned out to be quite a traumatic build was over, and I could now move on to painting.
I went through quite a lot of trial and error with deciding on the right paint for this kit. For the upper surface of the wings and fuselage I started with Tamiya Black Green (XF-27) and Revell Dunkelgrün, though this combination turned out to be too green looking for my liking. I painted over the Dunkelgrün with Schwarzgrün (also by Revell), and this produced a far better look. For the underside I used Tamiya’s Light Sea Grey (XF-25), as the standard Hellblau paint that would normally be applied to Luftwaffe aircraft with this livery looked too bright compared to the paint actually used on the Dunkirk Buchón.
Additionally, I used Citadel’s Abbadon Black to paint the propeller and the spinner, as well as the tyres and cockpit section. Continuing with the Citadel theme, I used Yriel Yellow to paint the iconic yellow engine cowling, as well as Leadbelcher for details like the armament and the undercarriage legs. To finish off the painting, I thinned some Revell Blaugrau to replicate the subtle mottling effect that is seen on the Dunkirk 109.
After waiting a few weeks for them to arrive, I could finally apply decals to the Buchón. I used a variety of decals for it; the swastika and the balkenkreuz on the wings were from a leftover Xtradecal sheet, and this was initially the same for the crosses on the fuselage - however these proved to be too big. I quickly removed them and swapped them for the ones provided in the kit, which matched up far better.
For the numbering on the fuselage of the aircraft I ordered a set of decals for Theo Nibel’s Fw 190D-9 by Peddinghaus Decals, as they looked to be a perfect match in style and size. While this proved to be the case, the carrier film for these decals was incredibly thick, to the extent that they looked like a sticker when applied.
This could have ruined an already stressful model, so I had to act fast. I removed the decals entirely with surgical precision and placed them back into a tray of water, digging out some leftover decal backing paper to help with reapplying them. Before placing them back I brushed over the model with a thinned layer of semi-gloss varnish, and then I cut off the majority of the carrier film surrounding the decals themselves. Once they were applied I coated the model with some Decalfix to help it set; hopefully it would tone down the flashing too.
Thankfully, it worked perfectly. While the flashing is still present, it is much harder to notice. The Buchón was saved.
Conclusion
Overall I had a very stressful time assembling this model, with many of the problems indeed being caused by the kit and not personal errors. It has very poor fitting on the wings and on the nose section of the fuselage which require filler to be covered, and I found the landing gear to be very sensitive and easy to break; especially when compared to undercarriages I’ve built on similar kits. The model does, however, make up for this with great detail, recessed panel lines and even a degree of customisation options - but that being said, to me it’s only worthwhile if you genuinely want a Buchón in your collection.
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