Jim Dabrowski

Day 3

Our first actual day of hiking! A brisk 40 degrees in the morning, that’s about 4 Celsius for you non-Americans out there, but it didn’t really feel all that bad. We planned ahead and made sure to bring along enough layers to deal with weather like this. Warmed up as we went along and overall it was a beautiful sunny day for walking, just lovely, blue skies, and a light breeze for pretty much the whole day.

Today eased us in to this trip. It was mostly flat for the twelve miles from Milngavie to Drymen (pronounced DRI-min). Besides the views, one of the coolest parts was meeting people from all over the world who are here doing the hike. A couple from the Netherlands, three folks from the Czech Republic who are camping as well as hiking (I’m not sure they’re wholly happy with that choice), Bobby from Montreal walked with us for the last couple of miles, and then we met Erica from DC and a lovely couple from the Queensland area of Australia, Jane and David, over dinner. These and some other folks we saw along the way seem like they’re becoming the “bubble” of people we’ll be seeing all along the way to Fort William.

The hike itself started from Milngavie and for much of it it felt like we were walking in a forest preserve back home. Lots of trees and stuff but sounds of civilization were never really that far away. Had a light lunch at the Beech Tree a bit more than half way then made it kind of early to the Ashbank B&B, our resting place for the night. Dinner of fish and chips at The Clachan, the oldest licensed pub in Scotland, rounded out the evening. Now time to rest and off to Rowardenan tomorrow. Supposed to rain in the morning. Good thing we brought our rain gear along!

JIm

West Highland Way Day 2

Day 2

Today was another travel day. This time we traveled from London to Milngavie, Scotland (for those of you in the US reading this, it’s pronounced mul-guy). We booked a seat on the Avanti West Coast train which got us to Glasgow. That took about 4.5 hours. From there, hopped another train to Milngavie. Traveling by rail is real nice. Comfy, quiet, etc. highly recommend. From there, we walked to our hotel, got settled in, wandered around downtown Milngavie, scoped out where the start of the trail is and then had dinner. Back to our rooms where we got all ready for tomorrow’s start to our grand walking adventure. Seems there’s a number of people here all ready to start walking the trail tomorrow as well. We might have some company!

That’s about it really for today. Actually feeling a bit nervous about this. We have been planning it for so long and looking forward to it but now that’s it here, I’m a bit worried. I’m sure it’ll be fine, right? Guess we’ll all find out tomorrow. :)

JIm

Day 1

Today was a travel day. Left Spartanburg made our way to Charlotte Airport where we flew to New Jersey to catch our overnight flight to London. Because we splurged a bit and bought business class tickets so we could get the lie flat seats, we also got access to the United Polaris Lounge. I have to say, it was nice. The chairs were comfy and they had some pretty nice free food and drinks but Newark Airport is really nice and I think I would have been just as happy in the main terminal. Live and learn.

Got on the flight, tucked in and much to my surprise I was able to get a pretty good nights sleep! Normally for me I can never get to sleep on a plane. It’s frustrating because I’m tired but I spend hours in that weird half awake half asleep state eventually giving up and just staying awake but being very tired. This time it took a little while but I got to sleep and felt pretty good on landing. Unfortunately Dena had a night like I normally do and was pretty exhausted all day. But we marched on.

Got to London Heathrow made it through all the stuff, customs is so much easier nowadays, took the Underground to our hotel (the Hampton Inn London Waterloo), then spent the rest of the day wandering around doing touristy stuff. Saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, wandered around Westminster Abbey, saw Trafalgar Square and from there on to Piccadilly Circus. I’m unimpressed with that last place, too touristy. Finally, we tried to find Diagon Alley.

When we were all here in 2006, We took a walking tour and the guide showed us a little road that many say was an inspiration for Diagon Alley. I wanted to go there again so we searched google and the maps apps. We kept circling around where it says it should be but we could never find it. I think that without the kids with us, we just weren’t magical enough to find it to be able to enter. Bummer.

That’s the end of Day 1. Yes, that was actually two days but it really feels like one big long one. Back at our hotel, going to relax and crash and hopefully get a good nights sleep. Then off kinda early tomorrow morning to catch a train to Glasgow to begin our hike on Wednesday.

JIm

West Highland Way Day 1

United Polaris Lounge at Newark airport

A few odds and ends from Emma’s wedding

Took a walk around Falls Park on the Reedy in Greenville. We’re in town to attend my niece’s wedding. Had some time and decided to walk around the park a bit. It is really nice. And a pic of the famous(?) Liberty Bridge.

Yay! Step M is finally finished. I feel like I start many of these build log entries this way. Hmmm. According to my spreadsheet, I started this step on July 13, so this being September 6 that is a long time. The first part of Step M was “plank the entire starboard side” basically. Which, doesn’t sound like much perhaps but seeing as how the starboard side doesn’t have a gaping hole in it, there was a lot more planking to do. 

All that, frankly, took a while. The curves in the hull made fitting all the planks in a bit tricky, but I just had to be patient, do a little bit at a time and eventually it all got done. I also spent a lot of time traveling these past six weeks for a variety of reasons which also slowed me down some. Next up was adding some filler to the bow and some finish planking to the stern. 

Here is a view of the bow with some filler added to round out the front along with some finish planking where there will be another couple of doors. 

Here is a view of the stern of the ship showing some of the finish planking. That big unfinished area is where the captain’s cabin will go. 

Finally sanded it all down reasonably smooth, touched up several areas and I think it’s good to go. 

On to Step N wherein I build the captain’s cabin. That’s going to be fun. This is the first time I’ll get to attach a bunch of the fun greebling of bones, and skulls, and other things that will ultimately make this a really cool looking ghost ship. Can’t wait for you all to see it. 

Until then, 

JIm

Yay! It’s finally finished. I’ve been at this for almost two months. Step L involves installing lighting on the lower deck and in the hold. This needs to be done now because the next step is to plank up the entire port side and then I would no longer be able to install any lights. Here it is. 

The kit itself came with all the pieces necessary to build the lighting by myself. Here is some of what was in the kit. 

The instructions said to build a couple of strands of lights by soldering the capacitors(?) resistors(?) (not sure what those are), to the LEDs, then solder all the LEDs together with short strands of wire, put shrink wrap tubing on most of the connections where possible and tape where it wasn't, and then sandwich all that between a couple of planks of wood and shove it in the ship and glue it in place. 

I’ll admit, I’m not the best at soldering having only done it a few times in my life, so I was a bit intimidated, but I figured I could handle that with some practice. More importantly, when seeing what I had to build out, it just seemed sooooo bulky. I really didn’t like what it was going to look like especially given the wealth of LED strip lighting available today. 

That led me down lots and lots of searches to find LED lights I would be happy with. I even bought a few things to try out to see how they’d work. I eventually ended up at Evan Designs. They sell a variety of LED strips, kits, pieces, etc. in a whole bunch of sizes. I purchased a couple of strands of micro-LEDs and a few other things I’ll be using in other steps, mounted them on a couple of strips of wood, soldered them all together and voila! I have lighting in my ship. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. 

When all is said and done and all the cannons and cargo are in place, the ship will have a nice back-lighting in the lower decks to show up at night. At least that’s the plan. It’s good to be done with this step. It’s taken me way too long. 

That’s all for now. Next up Step M: planking the entire port side. 

JIm

Step K is complete!

Yes, that big hole in the side is supposed to be there. By the end, the bottom part will have barrels, packages, etc. piled up down there and the upper part will have cannons and what-not. There are also going to be lights on the inside so you’ll be able to see it all too. That will be fun. So the starboard side here is mostly complete. Still a few places to fill in, that’s all part of Step L coming up next; along with trimming down the top portion - it won’t always look all jaggy like that. 

Til nex time! 

JIm

Today I Learned: When calling one GitHub workflow from another you have to explicitly state the called workflow should inherit all ENV variables otherwise it won’t have any access to them.

Saguaros are in bloom in the San Tan Valley.

Step J is complete! 

Yes, it’s supposed to be missing a bunch of planks. That’s actually the point of this model is that this entire side has a big old hole in it showing you the interior where you’ll see cannons, and supplies and stuff and it will even have LIGHTING! That’s going to be fun. Coming along. In Step K, I’ll be finishing up just about all the planking on the starboard side here. 

JIm

Starting planking! #flyingdutchman #modelship #modelshipbuilding

Step I is complete. 

Part of Step I was finishing and putting the doors on the ship. I showed you that before. The rest of this step was to sand down the bulkheads in preparation for planking the hull. 

The idea here is you want the planks to be able to lie flush on the bulkheads so the glue has better purchase and the hull has a smooth, curvy shape. So I spent some time with a sanding block sanding and shaping. Looks alright. May need to fill in some parts later as well. That’s really it for Step I. Next step, Step J, I start planking!! That, and the next few steps will take a while.

I finally decided to start using hashtags (I’m such a social media noob) #flyingdutchman #modelship #modelshipbuilding so maybe I’ll find and meet some folks. If you stumbled across this post on social media, head off to my blog at jimdab.com and go to the archives to see all my posts related to this build and my previous build of the Bluenose. 

Take care all,

JIm

And I was able to finish Step H as well! 

After getting the mahogany from Australia, I was able to finish outlining the grates that go on the deck. Step H, you may recall involved building that deck house and attaching the grates to the ship. 

Here is the grating on the fore upper deck (oh, and my toes in the distance)

Next is the grating in the mid-ships. Those large holes in the corners are where ladders/stairs will go later. Those y-shaped pieces will hold a small row-boat. You can kind of make out the eye-bolts on the corners. That’s where the boat will be tied down. This part isn’t glued down yet, it just has some flanges on the bottom to hold it in place. This will let me remove it later to add stuff like cannons to the lower deck. 

And finally, the aft-upper deck where the final grate went right up by the deck house installed earlier. 

And that’s it. I’m now on to finishing up Step I which primarily involves me sanding and shaping the hull in preparation for planking. 

Stay tuned!

JIm

Step G is complete—Finally! 

I got my wood! It arrived last week and I’ve been able to get going again, catching up on my steps. 

To finish up Step G I outlined each of my grates in the mahogany. I liked making that big one up top. It turned out real nice. Then I varnished them and that completed Step G. 

Next up, Step H.

JIm

I’m in a bit of a weird state right now with the Flying Dutchman build. 

In Step G, I needed to build some grates like this: 

I’m supposed to outline each one in mahogany like the one in the bottom-right. But, the kit didn’t include enough to do that so I had to order some. Despite the company I ordered from saying they were in the US, my wood is coming from Australia. 

So I moved ahead to Step H. In that step, I needed to build a small deck housing and install the grates on the deck. Well, OK, I can build the deck house. It looks like this: 

Cute, isn’t it? 

So that was about as far as I could go on Step H, so let’s look at Step I. In that one, I have to build some doors! 

Here they are in progress. And then I glued them all on. 

Here they are in the fore of the ship. 

And a couple in the aft. And you can see I installed the deck house as well. Those big holes in the deck are where the grates will go. 

Now it’s pretty much down to sanding and shaping the hull in preparation for planking. That’ll be Steps J, K, L, and M. So I’m stalled a bit right now. Once my mahogany arrives I can finish the grates, install them and that’ll pretty much complete Steps G, H, and I. The good news is, the wood arrived in the country and is just awaiting clearance through customs. Hopefully I’ll have them by the end of the week and can continue forward. 

Until then, take care, 

JIm

I made these five grates for step G. Now I’m supposed to frame each one in mahogany like that one there but I didn’t get enough in the kit to do that. 🫤 So I ordered some more. I’ll probably move on to Step H in the meanwhile.

Step F is complete! 

Wow, some of these steps go by quickly. 

Next up, in Step G, I get to build lots and lots of grates. Should be interesting. 

Here is a sneak preview of all the little bits I get to put on this model. This is fun. 

Those barrels will go in the bottom of the ship. That big old Flying Dutchman figurehead on the front and lots of bones that go on all over the place. 

JIm

A preview of things to come. Many, many months down the road.

Step D is complete! 

I added several upper-deck-like things and a few walls. 

Not entirely sure what’s up with the staining of the decks. I’m using the same stain and the same wood planking as the other decks but these turned out significantly lighter than the others. I’m OK with this since this is supposed to be a ghost ship so overall it’s supposed to look worn out, beat up and spooky. Hopefully the mis-matched deck staining will just add to the charm. 

Next up, Step F where I start to put on some walls! 

Stay tuned. 

JIm

All trimmed and sanded and dots poked in them. Now to varnish and stain and put them on the boat.

Even the desert can be full of foliage.