I slept in and wandered out to site quite late.

Linda and I needed to visit Northam for some business - so I organised with her that I would spend some time out on site applying rust converter to the cross arms and main beam, and then she would drop through and pick me up.

I don't know where the day went.

She picked me up at 3.00 pm and I still hadn't completed all the surfaces.

Saturday

I tried to get up at 5.00 am and failed.

Consequently I was not out on site until 7.30 am.

My first job was washing off the rust converter applied to the main beam yesterday.

I find a hose and a small stiff yard brush does the best job here - only 3 surfaces treated so far - another 3 to go.

Next, I needed to also wash down the columns and cross arms up on the first level.

To stop water penetrating the walls were the corner capping is normally installed - I placed two pieces of corrugated iron across the gap.

Again - hose and yard broom, and ladder.

All this took a couple of hours.

Then on to notching out the right angle beams so that they will bolt on to the main beam.

The notching process took only half an hour but the first right angle beam took me three hours to manoeuvre in to place so that I could transfer the mounting plate holes on to it.

Even though I have an outdoor umbrella, it was still very hot out on the white quarry dust.

I needed to stop for lunch and have a nap before I could press on with the second beam.

This time I was much more efficient at lining up the beam and managed to transfer the hole positions in just one hour.

By now it was approaching dusk.

I had asked Linda to make a special trip out to bring me a new bottle of rust converter.

So far I had not made use of it and I was feeling guilty about wasting her time.

In the failing light I ran the wire brush angle grinder over the remaining three surfaces of the main beam and painted on the converter.

Eventually home by 8.30 pm.

Getting pretty close to craning the beam in on the cross arms - just a bit of priming and tidying up to do next weekend.

Easter Monday

A leisurely start to the day and then I headed out to site, around midday, to prime the cross arms and main beam.

I had intended to do this during the week - either early morning starts before work or at the end of the day after work.

It's a good thing that I decided to do it today - it took me up to 6.00 pm to finish.

First off, I scrubbed off the rust converter from Saturday using a hose and a yard broom.

While the main beam was drying I tackled the cross arms.

These took a surprisingly long time to thoroughly paint with primer (plus I interrupted this job in the middle to talk to Ian). Also the beam, although quick to paint on the outside, took quite a lot of work to thoroughly paint on the inside.

This coming Saturday I will attempt to coat the cross arms and main beam with enamel.

I will look for some form of "Rust Kill" in a grey so that it finishes looking like galvanised iron.

I also need more primer.

Must remember to ring Steve during the week and ask him to visit next Saturday to see how to crane the beam in.

Thursday

I nipped out in the middle of the day to apply the final enamel coating to the cross arms and the main beam.