Built by: Tim Nolan  in Edgewater, Florida

Source kit: (2) Tom Daniel Honest Engine glue bombs
Paint:  House of Kolors

I absolutely love this kit. It is without a doubt, one of my favorite TD kits in my possession.  And yes, there’s two of them. Almost identical. Both of them were glue bombs. Ones for this contest, plans for the second will be announced at a later date…..

The first thing I had to tackle was carefully disassembling the glued mess. Some of it I couldn’t get apart, so there’s some traces of it’s former life even after restoration.  I removed as much excess glue as I could, sanded some areas smoother, and hit it all with a ton of primer. It was then base coated with an orange micro flake basecoat.  The paint job gets pretty complicated from here…

I  used the airbrush to fog all of the edges and most of the lower area with basecoat black.  Then, it got two coats of HOK Kandy Organic Green to darken it down.  I then mixed a combination of Kandy Apple Red, Kandy Brandywine, and Kandy Tangerine, until I got the dark Kandy Burnt Red-Orange you see now.  I wanted a deep kandy finish, but with an “antique” look to it. The tricky part was doing it all twice, and trying to make it as identical as possible.  

The rims were very tedious, plus there was so many of them!!  After it all was painted, it truly assembled nice.  Details were brushed in with Model Master, right down to the oil running down the can inside the cab. The coal in the coal car was brushed over with clear, mixed with some rainbow flake, and it really sparkles in the sun! (I even dusted the floor in front of the coal stove with it!) 

Dan Warford from Slippery Arts really outdid himself with the decals he custom-made for this build.  Gold leaf and black in a vintage script really set it all off.  I used one decal design to cover the unsightly seam in the water tank, it really helped!  The only difference in the decals on the two of them is the engine number, and the custom Nevada tags on the back: “WOOWOO” and “COALBRNR”.  Its all built stock from the box.