Instead we headed off at 7.15 on Saturday morning and arrived at 7.45

We packed up at the end of the day at 6.15 pm.

Dalia and Gianluca did a brilliant job painting more beams and columns with Rust Kill Mission Brown.

I even had them excavating some of the columns around the water tank, rust converting these and coating with Rust Killer.

Also all the column pads and brackets directly around the water tank.

Gianluca did some brush cutting on the far side of the creek.

Meanwhile I had a very, very slow day working on the 8m beam.

First of all I created some tack welds on the front corner and then from the beam on to the 75 x 75 x 4 mm columns.

I removed all the bracing steels and the beam deformed by about 5mm - ie it was pulling the two support columns off vertical.

At this stage I needed to start using the chain block to pull the beam in to alignment but first I needed to accurately locate the bolting positions around the core of the house.

This meant that I had to laboriously work my way down the length of the 8m and U beam measuring the cumulative position of each cleat and then transfer the measurements on to the house core.

This was a very time consuming process involving getting up and down on the ladder many times and clamping the tape measure at various datum marks.

It must have taken me 3 hours to do this.

Next I needed to look through my supply of purlins and yet another hour or two passed as I scratched my head and worked out the best pieces to use.

Eventually, when I was finally ready to start cutting, it was 4 pm and very hot.

I felt like I was wading through treacle.

The Wwoofers were also feeling the heat.

I shut all the doors, turned on the air conditioner and we retreated inside for an hour.

When we emerged at 5.00 pm I cut the purlin to length and bolted it in place.

I just need to apply the same treatment to the second column and I think we will be on our way.