I was out on site by 8.00 am and left at 7.00 pm.

Because there could be a ban any day on "hot work" I decided I had better do one job out of sequence and that was to put the chamfers on the UB250 beam while conditions were safe.

This took me quite a few hours as it was tricky accurate work on a large heavy beam using scary tools such as the large angle grinder.

(I made one mistake with the 5 inch angle grinder and it shot across the ground, cut its own power cord and tripped the circuit breaker. I was able to repair the cord easily and had it back in use an hour later).

Steve the Telstra contractor dropped around because I had run in to him the other day and talked to him about crane work.

He has a crane for lifting in large poles with a 9m reach.

It would be good to do the steel beam lifts as a number of small jobs over a number of weekends instead of it being a "big bang" high stress job.

Ross believes he has a friend who will hire us a crane for a very reasonable rate but I do feel it is not really a certainty and I have allowed $1500 for a day's hire.

To start work on the side veranda cleats I needed to spend about two hours working out the cleat positions on the three pieces of steel making up this beam.

I then measured these out, marked them with chalk, then a small grind mark, checked them and sprayed them with Galmet.

Somehow this took me up to 6.00 pm and it was time to pack up and leave.