I like the wood colour you've got - it looks urban/industrial rather than countryside. Presumably there'd be coal dust billowing around the drops in use, so the wood wouldn't go as light as it would normally? 

I agree, I think the colour looks good. Having worked in the Power industry using coal, anything and everything ends up being covered in black dust, especially as here where the coal would fall some distance releasing the dust into the atmosphere.

Hi Dave,

The coal drops are looking good. What chairs have you used on it?

See you at Scaleforum

Robin

Thanks for the positive comments. I will probably leave the colour as is for now - I can always make some slight changes later by dry brushing with lighter grey, if needed. Eventually, I'll apply some very fine coal dust for texture, especially in odd corners, although I imagine in the 1950's the deck would be kept reasonably clear for safety reasons.

Robin,

The chairs are P4Track Co (or Exactoscale) functional bridge chairs - which have a narrower base than a standard chair. These were I glued to the (obeche) support beams using Plastic Magic solvent. I tried a less aggressive alternative recently (on some cosmetic chairs) and found it didn't fix them properly. I also inserted some brass pins (with the heads filed to fit inside the moulded recess in the chair bases) at a few locations to aid alignment. Since your ash-pit supports are brass fabrications, perhaps brass chairs soldered on at a few places for strength and then plastic chairs in between would be useful?

Dave.