I had arranged to meet Ross at 7.00 am to gas axe some notches in the platform part of the stairs so that they would latch over the veranda beam.

While Ross brought his equipment and excavator over I marked up the purlin and column positions on to a piece of board and then transferred these on to the stairs so Ross had a guide for his cutting.

The process took him half an hour, much quicker than if I attempted to do it using an angle grinder.

Last week I had done a good job removing any fire hazards so we were safe.

However, I stood by with a hose just in case a grinding spark should cause any problems.

Ross then lashed the stairs on to his excavator in a very clever way and this allowed him to place it exactly in postion very quickly.

Then we slipped a railway sleep in under the bottom tread and we were stable and level.

Ross packed up and left. I continued on to weld the stairs across the veranda beam and replace the corrugated iron I had lifted on the temporary veranda cladding.

All I still need to do is to weld the hand rail back on on the LHS.

It all looks very smart and works perfectly - so many thanks Ross.

I spent the rest of the day working on the 75 mm beam clamps. This involved cleaning the PFC 150 sections on the bench grinder and then welding high tensile nuts behind the 12 mm holes.

For 20 hand made clamps this was very time consuming and it took me up until 6.30 pm to complete every piece.

During the week I am hoping to weld on the 60 mm pipe sections.