I had one last section to complete on the temporary platform.

This just needed five sheets of corrugated iron.

I was down to some rather rough pieces.

Ross had noticed and very kindly offered me some of his own.

However, it seemed to me to be a real pity to take some roofing quality iron and abuse it as badly as I will in the platform.

In the end I found that by trimming both rough ends off my remaining stock it was perfectly usable.

Finishing off the platform took me about two hours.

I then found it quite a thrill to be able to walk all the way around the house at street level using a combination of the veranda cladding and the scaffold on the west side (well I am easily amused).

I had bought a 4 litre can of paint (Woodlands Grey colour) to tidy up the multi-hued texture of all the second hand corrugated iron.

However, everyone I spoke to said that the temporary decking was quite inconspicuous and not an eye sore at all and that painting it was an unnecessary use of my time.

So unless anyone comments on it, I will leave the temporary decking unpainted.

Next, a job that I had not planned on.

The other week during the fire scare I realised that the open end of the temporary roof was a real fire attractor if any embers blew in.

I spent the next two hours reinstalling the sheeting I had removed earlier.

The main work required was to trim off 60 mm along the entire length of each sheet so that they would fit over the temporary cladding.

I still need to reinstall the edge capping to make it really fire safe but I will leave that until next weekend.

By now it was warming up and I needed a bit of a rest.

I headed over to Ross to install Firefox on his machine using a thumbdrive.

That seems to have sorted out a lot of his problems though I think his landline is a bit flakey. (also it is only ADSL in Wooroloo).

I wanted to work on making up some brackets to mate scaffolding poles on to the veranda columns.

This is so I can erect a safety rail at the edge of the working platform and also possibly have pulley attachment points to hoist up tarpaulins while working in the sun and the rain.

I had already prepared the materials for two clamps at home.

I mainly needed to do some grinding and welding.

There was no fire ban today but when I looked at the disorganised mess and the accumulated leaves in my "workshop" area I realised that any hot work would be very risky.

I spent the next three hours tidying up and raking up leaves (about 10 wheelbarrow loads).

By the time I was finished I felt very safe welding and grinding - though I did erect a metal sheet to contain the spray of grinding sparks.

Effectively I am hand making G clamps with a short length of 60 mm pipe attached.

Also any clamping surface must be 75 mm wide to avoid crushing the column tubing.

I welded on a high tensile nut and piece of 60 mm pipe to my two prototype clamps.

My electric planer was useful in creating an infill piece of timber to compensate for the internal shape of a piece of PFC.

I finished off both clamps (around 7.30 pm ?) as darknes fell and installed the clamps by torch light.

These prototypes are a bit rough and I learned a few lessons in the process.

However, they appear to provide a strong attachment point for scaffold tube uprights without crushing the 75 mm SHS tubing of the veranda columns.

I phoned Ross up the next day and asked him to comment.

Apart from some suggestions he was happy with the end result.

I will try to create another 20 clamps duing the coming week - even if all I do is cut up the stock material.

I have found some tough rubber mat which I will incorporate in to the design.

This will protect the paint work on the columns as well as hold all the components of the clamp in approximate position.