I believe for the time being I'm calling this project done. This post is about two weeks late, we had some plumbing issues and life got a bit too busy to update. I'm not sure if I want to letter the car into Santa Fe or Nickel Plate Express. The NPE coach today doesn't have the ATSF nameplates the model has molded on, and they wouldnt be easily removable from the model without alot of careful work. I've fully glazed the car, given it clear coat, etc. It runs decently well on my layout and I'm happy to have it. If I decide to add an interior or letter the car I'll move this page back to the current projects category, but for now I believe this car is done. I thank you all for following along and hope you got something from this.

Got some more glazing done. Not going to make a post for each time I get more pieces on, but I will once its complete. Its going to take multiple days since I only have so many weights, they're tungsten cubes used for pine wood derby cars, theyre really useful for affordable weights, I actually used ten of them glued to the frame above the bogies to give the coach some weight, as the kit does not provide one.

It got up to 70 degrees (fahrenheit) today, so I got out the airbrush! The last few times I'd used it I had bad paints that clogged it poorly. There was some stuck to the needle but I just adjusted its position manually and got it working. I used Semi Matt Aluminium airbrush paint by Vallejo for this. I had a bottle for other projects and I think it looks fine, personally. I brought it inside to dry and set it in my mom's makeup room to dry so it wouldn't get dust or anything on it while it dried.

After a second pass of the airbrush to make sure I got everything covered had dried, I hit the model with two layers of clear coat to keep the airbrush paint from rubbing off, as in my excitement for the decent but short lived weather I didn't think to prime the model.

I sat down and did work on the Hi-Level again today, got the end detals glued on. You can also see where I began testing brushing on the silver on the roof.

Couple hours later after letting the end details dry I came back and decided to tackle the stirrups. Unforunately while working I split one in half and lost the other half. This resulted in me using some copper wire, a stape, and some glue to fashion one that matched as close as I could make it. I also tried going further with hand painting the silver, with mixed results.

Package arrived today, I always appreciate models being marked with "FRAGILE" stamps and decals.

You can tell the age of these models simply from "most are still in service". This'll be fun to assemble. The finer details like grab irons arent in their bag, so I suspect I may be missing a few. Unsure if this'll become the Nickel Plate Express car or be markest as a standard ATSF car.