First I washed the rust converter off the large angle iron with a mop and bucket.

I decided not to bother with zinc primer - its only purpose was to avoid scratching and staining the existing primer on the front beam when clamped.

I retrieved some C 100 purlins from off the top of the storage area - unfortunately, in the intervening two years since placing them here they had become stained from fallen leaves.

I also retrieved the flashing from storage - this also needed cleaning up with soapy water.

A protective layer of plastic peels off this so the end result looks very clean.

I used silastic and clamps to stick the flashing down over the inner peripheral beam.

Next I needed to retrieve a number of clamps that have been neglectfully left out in the open holding structures together.

I will need as many large and small clamps as I can find when manhandling the front beam in to position.

I had been using a G clamp out on the front verge to hold the uninstalled beam in the upright position.

This was rusty and stiff but a good going over with a wire brush and some oil had it looking quite presentable and working well.

Also on the back corner of the veranda I had used another large clamp to hold a diagonal timber in place after I needed to move its position several months back.

I finally got around to modifying the clamping blocks and bolts so that the clamp could be freed from this job.

Again a wire brushing and oiling had this one back to good condition.

The timber scaffolding in front of the water tank was using 2 large clamps and 4 small clamps.

I worked my way through each joint replacing each clamp with threaded rods.

Finally, I salvaged the small clamps that I had used in the column positioning jigs - I had disassembled clamps and welded the threaded component on to angle irons (like small adjustable jack screws).

These I cut off with a fine cutting disk, ground off a lot of the rubbish and recombined them with their orphanned components.

I had brought some rusty old star pickets from home (all bent and twisted, bought from a scrap metal yard by the Kg).

I trimmed these up creating new points or cutting off a bent top as required.

Next I checked the length of the front beam (almost exactly 16m as expected) and marked up the purlin positions along the length of the flashing installed in the morning.

These are the positions that the bolt holes will be drilled in when mounting the purlins.

The day was drawing to a close now but I still had a few hours left to position gluts over the front trench carrying the short columns for the front beam.

The uninstalled beam is sitting on these gluts and next week just needs to be slid across and dropped on to the columns.

I managed to drag up the smaller piece of large angle iron but ran out of time to bring up the large piece (probably weighs 50 Kg) - I will bring it up first thing next week when I am fresh.

Then packing up and a bit of dinner.

The last task I performed as I left was to cable zip the safety barrier across the driveway - it was a large span and the barrier drooped a lot - really needed a star picket in the middle of the driveway - but a bit difficult to organise in the dark.

Sunday

Early afternoon Linda and I popped out to check that the property was still ok after the Wooroloo to Wundowie walk.

It turns out that we had the date wrong - it is not until next weekend.

While we were there I dragged the larger angle iron piece up to the top of the slope and experimented with clamping it to the curved outside peripheral beam.

I discovered that the small piece will be too short and completely useless.

Also - the curvature can be completely removed by going "over centre" with correcting blocks of wood.

I was saying to Linda that I would need to haul up 3 lengths of PFC to use for corrective bracing.

On the drive home it occurred to me that I could merely slide across the piece of 150 PFC, with the cleats welded to it, that is intended for installation on Rosses side.

On the way out I managed to add another zip cable to the protective barrier across the driveway and now it is much more taut.

Wednesday

I headed out in the middle of the day for a few hours break from work.

I steel brushed one side of the other PFC 150 and painted it with rust converter.

Also Ross helped me move the "bridge" out of the way.

I removed the sheeting, but once this was off and I inspected the underlying steel work I realised what a solid job I had made of it several years ago.

I seemed a pity to cut it up - so we merely moved it in front of the recent steel beams, out of the way.

I also made a start on moving some bricks up in to the trench - these are intented to counter the rotational force on the front beam due to the straightening beams being temporarily clamped to it.

Thursday

I nipped out to site for a few hours around 2.00 pm.

I washed the excess rust converter off the 8m length of steel.

Next I carried up another 10 bricks to help in positioning the beam.

Then I sweated and strained the 8 m length of steel across by 20 m.

This involved some rolling on pieces of 100 mm piping and a lot of brute force.