Having spent last Saturday creating two test 90 degree and two test 45 degree brackets - I was feeling frustrated at the lack of progress in installing them.

I decided to take Monday off and go out to site and perform a test installation.

I did not arrive on site until 11.00 am as I stayed back to help a client.

I used the template to mark out the position of the diagonal and parallel purlins and marked up and cut a diagonal purlin.

I seemed to work very slowly and it took me a while to work out the best procedure.

I only ended up installing the diagonal purlin but by the end of the day I had some ideas for improved brackets and the most efficient way to prepare and install the purlins.

All the tools I used are currently housed in one box so effectively I have a project kit ready to go.

I decided to have the next Saturday at home preparing the brackets and purlins.

Saturday

I had a vague hope of preparing brackets during work breaks but due to the pressure of work this was unrealistic.

Saturday dawned bright and cheerful.

As this was the first Saturday for a long time that was dry and sunny I realised that I needed to divert myself to another job that had been on hold.

This was to take some 3 metre lengths of 90 x 90 CCA pine and cut them diagonally.

These will then be fastened to the existing front wall stud frames ready to receive the 45 degree arms of the bay windows.

I needed a sunny day as I had to push a whole lot of carpentry horses and other items out in to the yard in order to access the table saw.

Quite a lot of time went in to preparation - setting and testing the saw angle and setting infeed and outfeed rollers.

Also I had learned from cutting the 22 1/2 degree pieces that I would need to perform the cut in about 8 steps in order to avoid the saw binding.

As a result the cutting process was slow.

Having to wear a lot of protective gear while cutting CCA treated timber did not help either.

Despite all my care I needed to perform some cleanup work on the newly cut faces using a power planer.

After this I very carefully vacuumed up all the sawdust. As mentioned before, I have created a "cutting booth" to keep the sawdust contained. This works well but I do not like leaving sawdust lying around outside our bedroom window (normally closed).

By now it was 2.00 pm and I needed to take a break for an hour.

Finally I started on my intended task.

I cut some 70 x 40 mm zinc coated plate in to 250 mm pieces ending up with 24 potential brackets.

The template needed reworking from what I had realised on Monday - mainly the need for the brackets to be able to mount back to back on either side of the existing purlins.

I took all the cut pieces up to the work shop and cleaned up the edges on a bench grinder.

I test drilled two brackets to check that the new template was correct.

By now it was 4.30 pm and time to feed the kangaroos and magpies and pack up for the day.