On Saturday I made a start.

The first job was to take 2 x 3 m lengths of 65 mm plate by 6 mm and cut it in to 150 mm lengths.

With a bit of wastage this gave me 37 cleat blanks.

The next job was to run these over a bench grinder, remove any burrs and grind welding bevels on to each piece.

After this I marked up the positions of the holes using a template piece and texta.

I used the drill press vice to hold the cleats in position while drilling first the pilot holes and then the 12 mm holes.

I had to run off to perform a chore for 4 hours in the middle of the day but by working in the evening I managed to fabricate all the cleats.

Sunday

With the loss of hours on Saturday, and nothing we wanted to see at the cinema, I devoted all of Sunday to welding on the cleats.

Each beam needed to be ground back to fresh shiny metal at each cleat position and the cleats were then tack welded in place.

I tacked in place fourteen cleats at a time and then welded them in one operation.

Having a large number of welding sites allowed me to alternate between welding points, weld continuously and avoid bending the beam.

By 3 pm I had completed the two cross beams in the ensuite.

I then continued on to cross beam at the back of the communal toilet.

This needed 4 purlins in one direction (for C 100's) and two purlins in the other direction for Z150 purlins.

I also needed to drill a 12 mm mounting hole at the ends of the 3 main 4.1 m beams and completed this just as it was getting dark.

If I am going to install this soon then it will have to be next weekend.

On the following weekend it may prove impossible to hire the lifting hoist.

I still have lot to do - wire brushing the rust, rust conversion, primer and top coat, transport steel beams out to site.

I cannot see me having all of this done by next Saturday.

Mon - Fri

I realised that I needed to weld 10 fingers on to the central beam.

These are needed to give support to the wet area floor right on the edge that allows all the services to pass through to the level below.

I took some 10 mm x 150 mm flat bar, cut off 5 x 100 mm slices and then cut these in half at 75 mm to give 10 pieces.

I ground bevels on to these pieces and during any work breaks on Tuesday and Wednesday I managed to weld these on.

As the light was fading, late in the evening I managed to run over all surfaces with a rotary wire brush and to apply rust converter.

I was up very early the next morning and washed off any excess rust converter with a high pressure hose and scrubbing brush.