Tricky trusses, tricky weather

While there is little obvious evidence of progress since last we visited on Saturday, it is clear that many smaller jobs are being carried out in readiness for the great lift-off - that is, the day when this, the first of the 36 trusses, is lifted into place. What has changed is that scores of housings, which will take the many narrow gently curved components, have been added. There are also now five horizontal support beams fixed to the outside of the top tier. Also, we noticed far more activity on the construction of the next three trusses on the other templates. The word at the site was that the first truss could be lifted into place this weekend, weather permitting. Wind, and occasional rain, continue to plague progress. We'll keep you posted . . .


The housings for the narrow, curved white components, bottom right, have been added, and look like perched birds. Similar work seems to have been done on the narrow beams themselves. What did surprise us is that they're taking so long to finish this work.


Two horizonal support beams - five are now in place - can be seen in the background. Two of these will help hold each of the massive 500-ton trusses in place.
Work on assembling the next trusses seems to have got under way with a vengeance at all four of the templates. One gets the feeling they'll put a lot more effort into this part of the project once the first truss has been successfully mounted on the superstructure.