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I've been looking at the characteristics ? since 8.30 this morning!

Lumen.. If you want a nudge or six, you can mail me at jordan2015@btinternet.com

I'll keep trying Jordan thanks.
My grid is almost full and I have all the word extractions.
Any tip for 37a still welcome.

37 - first word def, then 'exhaust'/empty a word + 6 letters for 'steady pain'.

Earlier on, h1982 gave a good tip for deducing the letters. To paraphrase - the removed word pairs must be of equal length each time because they are 'middle-less' (discovering the missing middle letter will produce a single word each time).

...in other words, the two words become one word each time.

I have it.
To anyone else struggling I would say don't let 9d extractions put you off. I had an idea yesterday but thought that can't work for 9d!

Glad I got it before reading your spoiler drxx!

Then you must have missed h1982's post too, lumen - I merely paraphrased it (or is it my response to your request for a hint to 37a that's the 'spoiler'?)

It's all fine drxx...I didn't follow H1982's gentle hint, as I was sure it couldn't work for 9d or 26a. But later I happily realised it could.
Then I saw you had made it very explicit at #45 and 46.