Gary Kerr's Enterprise....

For years I have heard of Gary Kerr's TOS Enterprise drawings. I certainly know of his contributions to Trek productions as well as TOS-R and, of course, Round2/Polar Lights.

But I have never seen his Enterprise drawings. Are they even available to be seen or even purchased? I would love to see drawings purported to be the most accurate ever.

 

the short answer is no they are not publicly available. i do not have the long answer but it has been discussed on various sites for a long time. i know that some people have seen copies of them but as far as anyone giving them up not going to happen. a guy by the name of steve neill has a model that is proported to be made from them. he is all over youtube and has worked in the industry for a long time.

 

^^ Is Neil the guy who made the 66in. Enterprise replica?

 

Ray, Gary is one of my Facebook friends. You can probably friend him too, or at least if you ask me this question on Facebook, Gary might see it.

 

Or not.

 

Well, might depend on how often he goes to Facebook. He might be a busy guy. He's also working on the 1/32 shuttlecraft, isn't he?

 

I was IMing with him last night, so he's on enough. I guess he can't see other peoples' posts on my wall. Ask him for a friending, then you can talk directly.

 

Gary helped me with the Galileo restoration. We placed his initials on the side in honor of his contribution.

 

Regarding the shuttle restoration, are there/will there be measurements released of the full size prop? Cloudster made some fine estimates several years ago, but that was before the original was rediscovered and restored.

 

Phil Broad's drawings on cloudster.com are amazing, but even so I saw differences between his drawings and photographs of the full-size mockup both in TOS screencaps and images of the mockup newly restored. There don't appear to be huge differences but they're there. Although it's hard to tell from drawings his take makes the mockup look more "nose down" than it appears in pictures. And finally there appear to be some slight details missing from his drawings, but again it's very minor.

If there are any measurements released I suspect they will be gross measurements. Gary Kerr most likely has had opportunity to study the exterior mockup close up if for no other reason than for research towards developing a 1/32 scale model kit for Round2. On that point assuming he makes detailed drawings I'd be surprised if they see the light of day publicly. It could be very much like his Enterprise drawings: available for licence purposes only.

So from that standpoint devoed fans will have to resort to what they've been doing for decades: studying photographs, screencaps and whatever drawings are available to make their own drawings. And perhaps the closest one might get is to go see the shuttlecraft in person and try to take lots of photos.

 

Things have been quiet since Round2 initially announced they would be developing a 1/32 scale kit of TOS' Galileo shuttlecraft. The only news I have is that while work is proceeding the introduction of the kit is slated for perhaps late 2014 or maybe even sometime in 2015. I hope not as this is a kit I've been waiting a long time for, as long as I've waited for the 1/350 scale TOS Enterprise.

That said while hunting around I came across this image posted on CultTvMan's site from the 2013 Wonderfest. What's interesting about it is it shows the differences between the 22in. miniature and the full-size exterior mockup as well as details of the interior. I can only assume or guess that this illustration could likely be based on Gary Kerr's research of TOS' shuttlecraft. I do find it interesting that the miniature departs as much as it does from the full-size mockup in some interesting ways. It doesn't look as tapered from back to front and the underside cut-out is missing on the full-size version. The decal placement also differs between the two replicas. That said I'm glad I leaned more towards the full-size mockup in terms of my own drawings of the shuttlecraft since the illustations here look more like my own interpretation.

 

That hatch on the bottom of the 22" miniature was used to access the interior. They could replace the interior light and change the rigging from there. No need for that on the full sized version.

 

Gary said something on FB about other things taking time away from his working on the plans. But he's trying.

 

yes that is whom i was referring.

so maybe i was wrong about no plans of the enterprise being available from mr. kerr?

 

Well I understand they're available for licenced purposes only. But the '66in. replica sounds more like a personal project unless, of course, he makes and sells them on order. I don't know.

 

I think the key point is that (historically) Kerr has been willing to share his Enterprise plans with people as long as they don't share them with anyone else. In the case of Neill, he made his 66" Enterprise kit based on Kerr's plans but then provided Sinclair's plans with the documentation he included with the kits. I know of one case where someone re-sculpted the primary hull underside of Neill's part thinking that he had got it wrong because it didn't match Sinclair's drawings.

Kerr has been able to turn a chance opportunity to make measurements of the TOS Enterprise into something he gets paid for by not openly sharing his work. It has been successful for him, so I can't argue with his strategy.

 

Can't argue with that. Much of the curiosity (for me) is in possibly learning of things I wasn't aware of previously. This certainly happened while Gary and Round2 openly shared their development of the 1/350 TOS E kit. I also thought it poor behaviour when some got antagonistic and overly rude when Gary and R2 challenged some people's long accepted ideas of what the kit should be like.

Since way, way back, like many others, I became fascinated with the Enterprise and doodled and sketched and drew her over and over and over again. I looked at the television screen and available photos intently to get my efforts as accurate as possible. I made a number of attempts to draw schematics of her. At first I was enthralled with FJ's blueprints but which turned to (mild) disappointment as realization set in that they weren't of the ship I saw onscreen.

Over the years and decades it was always interesting to learn of some detail I had previously gotten wrong or not been aware of. This certainly included the discovery of Alan Sinclair's and Charles Casimiro's drawings as well as yours, Shaw, and a number of folk's very nice 3D models. The development of the R2 1/350 kit was the most recent gold mine. In like manner I'm eager to see if any updated drawings or illustrations of the newly restored Galileo exterior mockup will surface particularly as Gary is researching that for the planned 1/32 R2 kit. I might have to redo my own drawings as a result.

Beyond an interest in Gary's work it would be fascinating to see actual construction plans for the 11 footer as well as the shuttlecraft mockup. It would be interesting to see if the drawings called out for something that was changed in the actual constructed. I believe MJ initially conceived of some form of radar like dome on the front of the secondary hull and this was changed to the parabolic dish (it's now hard to imagine it differently). Did that change happen at the conceptual and planning stage or at the actual construction stage? Might there have been other differences between the finished models and initial intents? Anyone who has done any 3D modelling soon learns that some things planned on paper don't always translate into 3D and this is certainly also true for physical models.

It is that enduring fascinating that fuels my curiosity.

 

i to have drawn my own set of plans that i am currently trying to get on line. while i do not think that it is possible to draw plans ans seen on the show i do believe it is possible to come close to having a ship that comes close to a grand compromise. i have taken the orginal 11 foot model, the frank joseph, the orginal matt jefferies, the "shaw plans" as seen on icars database, the charles casimiro plans, and the sinclar plans, and created a ships that works. Or at least as far as i am concerned. eventually i want to build my version of the 11 foot model (it will actually be 14.796875 feet long. ( one/64th) scale.

 

Well one thing that should be remembered is that both the 11 footer and the shuttlecraft mockup were productions compromises with inevitable flaws. Drawing any plans for a "true" ship I would try to correct those flaws.

A good example is that the 11 footer's main saucer was not a true circle. Of course you wouldn't draw plans for the actual ship that way because it only makes sense the saucer would be perfectly round. And that's how Gary and Round2 approached researching and developing the 1/350 TOS Enterprise model kit, that they were creating a replica of an actual starship rather than an imperfect studio prop.

 

Re the Galileo - full size mock up - Gary and i communicated for months on "actuals". He is incorporating all of that into his plans and i would think that's the going forward reference. Of course the mock up does not match the miniature. And it does not match to the "24 foot long shuttlecraft" line from the show.

Or that you can stand up in the ship!

The mockup had some tapering going on (in the 'racing stripes') that we believe were used to make it a bit larger, e.g. a bit of forced perspective. Remember, the lettering and stripes were painted by the studio and they would have been very aware that its too small to fit the inside.

So i would take Gary's measurements, reconciling all incarnations, as the gospel at this point.