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Thanks rad.
Yes, you're quite right - there was still a fair bit of work to do on the clues even after twigging the theme.
For me it felt like getting out of first gear, straight into third but never getting to 4th - a bit of a bumpy ride.

By the way, the 'elk' reference is in Chambers, it's in brackets - '(esp elk)'

Edging close to the finishing line with this but there are a couple (well, more actually) of parsings and definitions I'm struggling to see....

39 Bouncer gets bar back (4)

I've got what I'm sure is the right answer, a "bar" reversed/back, but just cannot see how it's a "bouncer!

10 Artificial leather wader for going round cave backwards

Again, I have the answer, Rexine, but cannot parse it.

rexine ree = female of ruff wader bird, cave = nix backward

the 'bouncer' is the L... and backwards it's a bar of iron.

'nix' is a word of warning as is 'cave' (Latin) - the 'ree' is a bird (another kind of 'rail').

bounce is a lie ie an untruth hence liar

Thanks Drxx, thanks Krauton.

Why is "bounce" a lie? If it's to do with golf then the lie is when the ball's at rest, not bouncing - or is it something else?

Cancel that, I've just seen it in Chambers. Thanks again.

Brendan, if you root through Chambers you'll find buried in there that a bouncer is a liar. I started off thinking that a bouncer was a roo and + a T bar made root as in 'root for' (back).

Sorry, I should have refreshed the thread before replying as your question had been answered. Have got Ring 5 sorted but still have one or two to resolve, however, despite the positive comments about this puzzle, the longer I worked at it, the lower became my will to live. It is an exercise in obscurity. One for the ninja solvers.

williamseal, I was using BRB as shorthand for Big Red Book, aka Chambers. Apologies for being obscure.

The other resources I alluded to were TEA Crossword Helper and Word Web:

https://tea-crossword-helper.soft112.com/

https://wordweb.info/

I believe both currently offer free trials. I am far from expert in their use, and don't use them all the time, by any means, but they do help in certain circumstances.

TEA is handy if you know a certain number of letters in an answer but not necessarily their location. So, for 24d, for example, if you are confident of X, L and V, but nothing else, if you type in ";xlv..." it will show all words containing those three letters in any order. Only two show up in the Edited English list, one of which is the answer. It has many other features too.

WordWeb allows you to search whichever dictionaries you have loaded into it for particular text. Chambers is one option, the Oxford Dictionary of English is another. Should you not know any letters, but you want to search on a definition, if you search for all entries containing the words "Ganges" and "boat" for 6a, you will see only two qualifying entries, both beginning with P. One is your answer.

It also has a powerful anagram solver, and allows searching with wildcards. So, again on 24d, if you search for "v?x???" it will give you just five possibilities in Chambers, one of which is what you are looking for.

I have no connection with either product, and of course it's entirely up to you whether you wish to pay for them. Some people might consider using such help unethical. I make no comment on that, but as I've said before, I don't submit anyway. All I would say is that "ninja" solvers who can crack puzzles like this on a Friday night are unlikely to be unaware of such aids.