I had been looking forward to welding up the UB 250 all week.

In my fantasy I was going to complete it in two hours and then go on to some other work.

A bit of a slow start - I probably didn't get working until 9.00 am and then stopped at 4.00 pm.

The work involved removing the fishplates (Ross told me I had not bevelled some of the welding surfaces) and inserting a cosmetic piece to tidy up the bevel.

Last week I had started on the insertion piece so I spent about an hour knocking this in to shape - various grinding and cuts - the surfaces were not at exact right angles.

I tack welded in the insertion piece then ground out the tack welds on the fish plates to prepare them properly.

Welding everything up took me much longer than I expected and it wasn't until 1.00 pm that I embarked on the second fishplate.

I spent several hours preparing the second insertion piece only to make a mistake on one of the cuts and waste my efforts.

By now it was 4.00 pm and I was feeling discouraged.