This was followed by pilot holes and finally 14 mm holes.

The plate bender worked brilliantly and I formed up 26 brackets in just half an hour.

I ground "dimples" in to half of the brackets to allow for those being fitted inside the concave side of existing purlins to have sufficient clearance from the flange - the brackets are 75 mm wide and the purlins are 100 mm but their return edge leaves an aperture of just 70 mm.

I applied cold galvanising to all the newly cut bright edges and then because I had bought a completely new can ($42 for 500 mm) I also coated every surface (the plate is zinc coated rather than hot dipped).

I also cut, to a rough length, the cross purlins to be installed using the brackets.

The main work here was cutting them in such a way as to form a tongue to insert in to the concave side of the existing C purlins.

Saturday

I was out on site at about 8.30 am and worked until dark.

Even though I had everything prepared I was still disappointed at how slow my progress was.

By the end of the day I had installed the 4 straight purlins and also fabricated and installed the diagonal purlins on site.

Only once I was on site did I realise that the diagonal purlins will need to be repeated at an offset position in order to support some of the floorboards from inside the house.