Deck Plans VI: The Undiscovered Bowling Alley

There's more than a little artistic license in that shot, mainly in how that's the only time that upper sensor dome was ever implied to be transparent. Every other time we get a close shot of the bridge dome, that sucker is better described as translucent.

And it should be noted in the remastered version of that shot, the "camera" dips down a bit before the final pull-in, indicating that, yes, the bridge is at the bottom of the dome.

As for the question of scale, I really can't say for absolute certain, since it's based more on the breakdown of the deck levels and eyeballing things so they look right. I'm shooting for the 947' length, but I'm not completely married to that exact figure. For the record, I'm not a big fan of the 1080' theory.

 

Well, I pursued this for about an hour, but something terrible happened. I put the McMaster sized bridge in the Sinclair based bridge in a 947' Enterprise and it FIT PERFECTLY. I mean exactly the way we imagined it all these years. Only with the turbolift sticking out. Unless you a) moved the lift 2) rotated the bridge or d) moved the nub.

So I tried Andy's suggestion of moving the bridge down and forward. It works. Kinda. Just moving down does a lot. The best bang for my buck was moving it down a little less, but moving it off the centerline of the ship. But imagining where the lift would travel then (presumably to the nub) made my head hurt.

That was when I realized that this (for me) is going to have to go in the pile with the curved hallway outside engineering (if you're a secondary hull type person), the shuttle deck, the hall in TMP that goes through the deflector dish, the bridge wall in ST6 that don't fit in the dome, and other Trek "what the hecks".

Of all the possible options, my favorite now would actually be moving that darned nub off center. Then all would be wonderful. Just saying.

 

Take the nub out of the equation and the headaches tend to ease.

Also you may have stumbled upon the reason why McMaster's bridge is 15% too big. Wrong reference point.

 

Precisely, one of my main points in sparring w/CRA from the begining on this topic. Sets are imperfect representations of what we would see on the hypothetical "real" starship, being confined to one soundstage, with space and budget limitations, lighting and dramatic camera angle considerations, etc. etc., there's no way they could -nor were they intended to- corrospond to exactly how the "real" ship would be put together, so relying too heavily on "how we saw it onscreen" as a technical referance as to how the ship should be put together, is nonsensical, and doomed to failure from the git go.
Take "the hall in TMP that goes through the deflector dish" for example, looked at only from a production point of view, it is fair to say this is not a mistake, it's the way it had to be, (to paraphrse Mr. Justman on a similer matter) but looked at only from a technical ingineering point of view, this is and was a "mistake", because we know it can't possibly be this way on our hypothetical "real starship", not if everything is supposed to fit together anywhere near like our common sense, and designeer intent, tells us it's supposed to!
My point is, to reiterate, If one just wants to watch the show and not think about it, that's fine, then obviously, none of this is an issue anyway. But for those of us interested in making deck plans, it behooves us to think about such issues, figuring out how everything could fit together becomes then, a fundemental and necessary concern, otherwise indeed, what's the point!
Further, since we are not making a dramatic production, and we are not under the budget, time, and space constraints that plague them, and forced compromises with purely technical considerations, we are free to -and indeed obligated to- choose the best technical and structuraly logical design solution to these mismatch problems. IOW, why continue to enslave ourselves by holding on to these "real world" constraints and limitations when designing an Ideal fictional ship that would not, and should not, be beholden these anyway?

But evidently, I'm alone in this view?

Just curious, would you move the entire T/L shaft, or just the upper deck or two's worth?

 

Agreed, when scaled correctly, the center of the T/L housing on the dome and the center of the bridge result in the bridge T/L being off center with referance to its Ideal location in the T/L housing. For what it's worth, FJ's solution to this was simply to make the alcove a little "deeper".

 

FJ's solution was based on scant, and often contradictory, reference material, and sticking with an aeronautical, instead of nautical, approach.

 

You're saying that he did all of the measurements of the bridge set, right down to the buttons, and then said "Hmmmm, how big to make it? I know, I'll scale it against the model of the ship!" Seriously?

 

Amen, hallelujah!

 

Stranger things have happened.

 

I know, it's probably a coincidence, but I could't resist.

 

I just double checked as it has been a long time since I worried about fitting this stuff together (I've spent most of my time worrying about getting the actual measurements of the models right in recent months).

McMaster's is about 105% (in any single direction, or about 110% for the area) of Jefferies plans. Jefferies bridge is not quite as roomy.

 

By the way, almost forgot. Is it just me, or does the angle on the insrument panel of the console not seem to match the final version here? I've done some studies, and it seems to be a bit different. I don't think it effects the overall measurments here, but its worth documenting, one way or the other, and double checking for other possible variations?

 

How close does Franz Josephs Diagrams of the Bridge come to Matt Jefferies
in terms of layout and Size?

 

I think that Jefferies drawing is more of a thumbnail sketch, so the picture probably doesn't match the numbers given in every case. Probably more with idea of getting the idea down before proceeding to full scale construction blueprints.

 

If memory serves, I think FJ's bridge is actually smaller than the actual set.

 

The FJ bridge (from the Technical Manual) is about 125% (in any single direction, or about 156% for the area) of Jefferies plans. They make the McMaster's plans look great.

FJ's bridge is massive!

 

Well, I can't even read half the numbers in that drawing, even with better scans I have, but anybody who's considering using this to reconstruct the bridge (since it's all we have) better check it against photos of the real thing every step of the way.

 

Well, one should consider looking beyond the fuzzy illustrations when doing analysis of this type... Consider what you see there.

Here is a hint... the scale it was drawn at was 1/4" = 1'-0".

What do you see?

The image (even if cropped wrong) is of a sheet of paper punched for use with a three-hole binder. We have a scale reference thanks to that. Cross check that with the call-outs to make sure that the proportions haven't been altered over the history of the image.

This small image has a wealth of information that can be pulled from it, even if many of the call-outs are unreadable.

Always look beyond the obvious when doing analysis of this type.

As for comparing it to images of the actual set pieces... that should go without saying. But I would suggest using shots from The Cage as a starting point if someone else wants to tackle this.

 

My point exactly, wouldn't want someone to just look at the diagrams and assume they're accurate.

Hence, my statement "I don't think it effects the overall measurments here". IOW, a referance to the scale of 1/4" = 1'-0"

Goes without saying (I thought).

Exactly, hence my statment, "I can't even read half the numbers in that drawing", in answer to CRA's, "the picture probably doesn't match the numbers given in every case" IOW, it doesn't matter, my point was, caution should be used, in the absence of legible call-outs, in interpreting this picture.

Hopefully, I've just demonstrated that this is exactly what I've done, and, ironically, sums up exactly what my point was in this all along, right from the start.

 

I wouldn't mind trying my hand at doing autocad drawings for the Plan layout and the elevation view. Here's what I did using the McMaster Plans as a reference
TOS Bridge


TOS Bridge varient