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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.

A final thought: people have different amounts of time they are able or willing to devote to crosswords. In my case it's no more than 5 hours a week, so I employ any aid that reduces my solving time, except other people. But I have dim recollections of a housemaster at Eton in the 70s called Bobby Bourne, a classicist who was a Listener aficionado, who considered the use of a dictionary to be cheating.

"O tempora! O mores!"