Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Both of the numbers in the title have a specific property, fgsltw, and one is inside the other

This has been very difficult, but I eventually have a full grid. I think that I have plugged in the correct letter, it being the 6th letter in the 9 letter word, but then I am completely lost as to how to proceed.

Gitto, you sound right so far. Think of a synonym for how many occurrences of that word you now have (6 letters). That precedes your 9 underneath. Google that image

That is what I have done Quisling. It's the "no other bars are to be shown and at all stages the grid contains only real words" that is puzzling me.

BTW, I only have 8 original and 24 extra bars in my finished grid.

Where you have removed the pair of nine letter sets, you should have created two symbols reflecting the phrase under the grid. They are created using some of the bars in the grid. Don’t add any others. You should find you now have lots of three letter words, together with some longer ones

Your bar counts are correct

fgsltw, I see others have beaten me to it, nothing I can add. I agree with others here, these were very abstruse clues, took me hours (this is a good thing), hence the late hour for my original post!

Gitto, maybe I misunderstood your concern. Obviously with no bars in the grid, real words will not be marked as separate from each other. The point the preamble is trying to make is that removal of the nine-letter groups will still leave real words, even when 4 becomes 3, 8 becomes 7 etc. The instruction that bars should not be added is just for cosmetic purposes to display the final result

I really need help to get going on this! I have '1 across' in place, and several other cold solves. But after a very long stare, I'm just not seeing the early downs. Help with first down, Empty collection....and fifth down, Bearer of flowers would be much appreciated.