Another fan attempt at TOS deck plans

BrookeStephen,

Contrary to what you may or may not believe, I, myself, and most of the other members here actually do have a sense of humor.


CuttingEdge100

 

Sorry - when I get really bored, I get really silly....

AND I'm really bored.

 

So... has Shaw abandoned this project? I hope not, I always look forward to the next installment of this thread.

--Alex

 

No... but I am taking something of a break.

This type of work, while fun and enjoyable, requires a lot of energy. In the last few weeks I've been getting a ton of work from my clients and I can't afford to turn that work away right now. Consequently, when I get a little free time I want to do something that doesn't require a lot of intensive thought.

So I've been working on my models because they are a less strenuous activity.

But even then, my working on my model of the Enterprise was always planned as a way of cross checking the 33 inch plans I drew up to find errors. I found a few (and so did Tallguy working from those plans), and I'm making note of changes to be made on them at some later date.

So again, no, I'm not abandoning anything. I've taken breaks in the past (there was a long one between August and December of last year), and usually it is because of real world responsibilities (because Trek stuff doesn't seem to pay the bills). I have been visiting the forum from time to time (reading interesting stuff like Praetor's Excelsior thread), but like the work in this thread, composing thoughtful responses requires more energy than I have right now.


So in general, to everyone who reads this every time there is a new post, I'm sorry that it seems like the thread is being bumped every so often with no new content. It will be a little while before I can devote some quality time to this.

In the mean time, TIN_MAN seems to be on a roll doing some interesting things in his thread on Franz Joseph's plans which I hope is not being over looked.

 

^^Thanks for the plug Shaw, I, of course, am still enjoying your threads particularly the new 33 incher one, I always thought that little gal never got enough TLC from fans, so it's nice to see she hasn't been forgoten.

 

Ditto the thanks for the plug.

 

In some respects, I like the 33-incher better because the window position on the saucer rim makes more sense.

Although I could imagine for most aspects of detail and exact shape the 11-footer would be better.

 

Jefferies and the Undercut

I'm putting this here as it has to do with Jefferies view of the Enterprise and the models as constructed under Datin's supervision, and next to nothing to do with Franz Joseph's work.

Before starting, and I'm amazed that this needs to be said at all, maybe we should review how to look at technical illustrations... specially in the days before computers. I'm seeing people examining Jefferies drawings from the writers guide and TMoST with what would have been considered practically a microscope back in the period when they were drawn. It seems that the ability for some people to read reduced information illustrations has been lost in this computer age.

As an example, lest do a comparison between Joseph's reduced information illustrations in his technical manual and his larger drawings in the Booklet of General Plans, and Jefferies' reduced information illustrations seen in TMoST and his larger drawings of the Enterprise model plans.

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I would hope that that illustration alone would show the difference in how these illustrations should be studied. After all, how many of you guys pick apart Joseph's technical manual illustrations of the Constitution Class in the same way you've been looking at Jefferies' TMoST illustrations.

Not to labor on this too much more, but maybe it would be helpful for some to recall the scale at which these drawings were done relative to each other.

Click to enlarge​

And recall that these weren't technical drawings in TMoST, these were reference drawings... designed to give the viewer (that is, the staff of Star Trek) a feel for how things were laid out.

Further, I think many of you guys should attempt to recreate the conditions Jefferies was working under. His curves on the Enterprise didn't match from drawing to drawing because they had to be redrawn each and every time. I have examples of three different primary hull cross section curves from the Phase II Enterprise (all done in 1977), all drawn by Jefferies, and all of the final design... but all hand drawn at vastly different scales to each other.

If you read this stuff as if they were using modern CAD software or illustration software or even 3D software, you're putting yourself on track for some interesting wild goose chases by over thinking the whole thing.

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With all that having been said, lets look at how one might want to approach the subject of the undercut. See, looking at Jefferies' plans, I don't think he even thought of there being an undercut. I think he considered the whole outer ring hanging down as an addition to the structure of the primary hull.

Consider his drawings. All of them (small, medium and large) have a characteristic line along the lower edge of the primary hull. At that line the outer edge changes drastically in direction before reaching it's lowest point. What we see on the models as a somewhat smooth undercut is that hanging structure returning to the plane of that outer line seen on the edge of the primary hull.

Without having more of the plans it is hard to be certain, but this is an estimate of what Jefferies might have been wanting the cross section of the primary hull to look like.

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So the next obvious question is... why didn't he get that on the models?

The answer is that he sort of did get it, to a degree, on the 11 foot model. Because the edge on the model changes from being a straight slope to a continuous curve (around to the underside of the primary hull) at about where that point would be.

_____________​

While we are on this subject, this brings up an interesting point about the windows on the edge of the primary hull. What I found in my studies of the 11 foot model is that the point at which that curve starts on the outer edge is also the depth of the undercut. More importantly, that area (between the top edge and the beginning of the undercut) is a wood ring structure supporting the model. When the model was modified to be lit, there were rectangular boxes cut into the ring and the windows were lit from them using clear rods placed in holes drilled from the outer edge in.

So the windows are clustered in rows too close together along the center of the edge because that was where the wood was. so the lowest windows/port holes along the edge are above the top of the undercut.

This, of course, won't make any difference on the current version of my plans as all the windows on it were painted on the model at that point. But future versions will take into account the addition of lit windows (and where and how they were placed within the model).

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On a side note... I'll be getting back into the swing of this project as I finish up on my model of the Enterprise. That model has been great for working on details of my plans of the 33 inch model.

 

No doubt about it.

They've gotta add a "drool" smilie to this board.

 

Now that's what I'm talkin about (in the FJ Plans thread)!!!!

No more undercut!
No more undercut!
No more undercut!
LOL

 

Unfortunately, it's not that easy.

Otherwise, that new ship in JJ's misbegotten flick would've vanished in a puff of fannish outrage months ago.

 

An interesting insight. I'll be curious to see how it pans out. (I think I followed all of it.)

 

Oh, and I got so caught up with the undercut, I forgot: bravo with the plans comparison. People don't realize how EASY it is to do the stuff we do now.

 

Well, strictly speaking, Archaeology is a sub-discipline of Anthropology (One needs to get a BA in Anthropology before getting a grad degree in Archaeology).

 

I seem to recall McCoy referring to Lt. Palomas as the A&A officer, archeology and anthropology. Or ancient civilizations. I really should watch that one again....

 

Archaeology and anthropology it was for dear Apollo-seduced Palamas, CRA.

 

I thought I had posted something like this, but as it turned out what I had posted was pretty small and mixed in with a lot of my illustrations (though the reference scale was there to work from)... so here is a slightly larger version of some of the raw set plans all to scale with each other on a 10 foot by 10 foot grid.

Click to enlarge​

This is obviously not the final diagrams I'm working on, which will be cleaner and easier to work with... sorta looking like this.

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As stated from day one, the sizes of the sets are locked to their original sizes (the sizes that we see on screen), though some angles might change depending on how far out from the center a room is placed (and I'll try to provide a variety for some rooms when I redraw them). The goal for me has been to see if the sets will fit without alteration into the Enterprise... basically to see just how far Jefferies thought all of this through (and that has never changed).

These are basically what I was working from for all of my sketches (even the first sketch) when attempting to see how things might fit together, though DS9Sega's Forward Phaser Control would be a better version than the one included above.

 

Oh that's nice. It's the sort of thing that's so obvious I'm amazed we haven't seen it before. Where the heck was that briefing room table sketch when I was trying to make mine!?

 

Yeah, it's nice to have all those in one convenient place rather than all over the place, like my original copies. Quick question, slightly off topic though, does anybody know what that triangular thing is in Dr. McCoy's lab, to my knowledge, we never actually saw it on set in any episode? It looks like a table or a free standing cabinet of some sort and it seems to have 'doors' or panels of some sort on it's sides?

 

Wow, Shaw.