I've painted the front face of the scuttle to match the chassis.

I wasn't going to trouble myself with taking apart the heater system, so carefully masked off the centre section and left that in grey.

The detachable panel which accommodates the pedal shaft, so making it easy to dismantle everything, caused me to wonder how I was going to hand paint it without getting in a mess.

Two small but powerful magnets in a vice - how clever is that!

Over the week, as time allowed, I started to add the bits and pieces that go on the firewall. It's getting a bit crowded and I haven't yet come up with a plan to site the ignition multi-plug thingy. I discovered that I'll have to make up a special spacer for the steering assist motor. Without it, the geometry won't allow me to remove it from the column. A simple triangular aluminium block with holes for the bolts should suffice (happily, there's a technical drawing of the PCD in the brochure).

My new-to-me brake press arrived in the early part of the week. The pulling handle is a bit low, so I might have to make an additional grab that I can reach more easily. I think this is going to prove very useful when doing sills, doors and window frames.

The last few weeks have been wonderful for butterfly spotters. I have buddleia shrubs in the garden which every summer run amok, but the bonus is the profusion of bees and butterflies. I hadn't seen one like this before and the picture doesn't do it justice. I think it was a Common Blue, but it didn't have the white edges to its wings, though the black spots were present. It was an incredibly vibrant electric blue with just a hint of lilac. I pursued it to the Jasmine at the back door and got off a shot before it whizzed away again.

My aluminium welding is gradually improving though my hand is still not steady enough to get really nice results. The occasional touchdown is also infuriating as it makes such a mess. I found out why the tungsten was splitting and causing a coronet to form at its tip - too much clean area width adjustment - 20 - 30% is about right and mine was set nearer to 50%. That said, my welder, rated at 200amps is managing to tackle material up to 3/16th and get reasonable penetration, but as the rule of thumb is 1amp per thou, I can see why it's struggling with anything approaching ¼". As it happens, a return trip to Korea is in the offing, so having talked about it for ages without doing anything, on my return I'm going to upgrade to a more powerful machine.