TOS Enterprise Internals

[Mres_was_framed!]

The L shaped outlines are gray, not red. Here is my top view with the two different engine room sets to scale (947 length).

And here is a closeup that should have more detail.

Thanks! So it looks like the L-shaped areas would not quite work as removable covers for the engine room "bays," as I had hoped.

Does the first or second set of grid lines match the location of the undercut?

I thought the Deforest Kelley reference would have been enough, but I am happy to expand on my work.
No, obviously De is not in the Rec Deck scene. But since the rear walls were reassembled into the set that became the "Officer's Lounge", we can use his height to get a much better understanding of the wall's dimensions, especially those details on the same level as Kelley:

And while the Rec Deck is a less clear image, we can still measure the dimensions of the outer window frame and the size of the bay and see that they match those of the Officer's Lounge

Finally, while 8' is more or less in line with the width shown in the various scenes (it's hard to be sure because of those angled frames) I really can't see how how they are in any way comporable to the Rec Deck windows shown on the model.
In this photo of the model the saucer rim height and Rec windows are both visible.

Knowing that a 1,000' long Enterprise will have a 20' thick rim, we can deduce the following dimensions:

Now that image isn't entirely flat to the camera so the windows might be slightly wider, but not twice as wide!
In fact using Big Jim Slade's plans (with do feature a flat orthos of the Rec deck octant) the windows measure out at 4'9" wide which is not unreasonable:

However, to fit 13' bays in there would require expanding the windows to near gigantic size!

Suffice to say, no part of the Rec Deck set can fit into the rim of a 1,000' refit Enterprise

Based on this, I still think that we could just say that this set in the secondary hull and that those windows are the big blue ones.

Going back a few posts, I finally got around to putting words to sketch. I hope @yotsuya doesn't mind me using his artwork, but here's my concept of putting the S2/3 Engine Room in the saucer off the main 50 ft. dia. corridor (my scaling maybe a little off, but you get the idea). The turbolift path is up one deck (upper rim deck), and the Engine Room sits on the bottom rim deck extending up into the upper deck:

I like this concept, and this is great artwork! As I am a fan of making the pipe structure to be of a large size, why not just make it go all the way to the end of the saucer and line up with the little circle between the impulse engines? That would let the pipe structure connect to them to power them or vice versa. Still, its remarkable to see the set fir in the saucer this way.

The lounge wall may depict a viewscreen in the movie, but it is constructed from the same set piece which made up one of the lower levels of the Rec Deck and as such has the same dimensions.

I thought the lounge is supposed to have windows at the back of the bulge on top of the saucer, just like is precedence on later ships.

I want to add, I especially like the orange ladder outside engineering being in the thickest part of the saucer, so it could be used to climb straight up all its decks, or most of the them.

 

[yotsuya]

Problem with that is that there are two rows of windows in the rec room and only one in the lower secondary hull and the windows in the lower secondary hull have a nice botanical garden set inside them. So moving it to the secondary hull doesn't work. Besides, they had a huge mural outside the rec room windows so you can see the spacedock and the starboard warp engine so that really solidifies the placement of the rec room in the ship. We just have to adjust the room design to conform to the exterior of the model. Or, for those who prefer another route, adjust the size or details of the exterior to match the set. But with the set ignoring the undercut, that limits how much you can just resize things to make it fit before you have change something in the set design.

What I'm leaning toward in my design for the top of the TOS saucer are those two gray shapes are access hatches for major maintenance or even replacemnt of the impuslse engines and the two small yellow rectangles are airlock elevators like we see in the TMP refit.

 

[Mytran]

There are quite a number of ways that set doesn't fit inside the ship. Unless you modify it. Same thing I've been saying all along. But the point I was making is that the wall they build DOES fit. The windows don't line up right, but the wall itself fits. With some relatively minor adjustments I can make a room of that general feel fit inside the ship where it is supposed to. It's another case of them building a set to the stage for filming rather than building a set that truly fits inside the ship. From my understanding, Probert had a logcial design that got axed in favor of a very illogical but beautiful set.

Probert's design nicely accommodated the undercut of the saucer but it's hard to see how the whole crew could have watched a single viewsceen from the lower levels. Realistically, it would have had to be projected on the window wall somehow.

As for the final Reck Deck they ended up with, I don't disagree that the aft section could fit in the 1,000' refit. However, retaining the dimensions as given leads to windows very close to the floor on the balcony and way above head height on the lower level. Lowering the ceiling and raising the centre section to allow for the undercut is of course a necessity (although I fail to see how it would double the capacity, as per your earlier post) but it effectively turns the room into a mezzanine, only accessible by stairs from the main decks of the ship.

I thought the lounge is supposed to have windows at the back of the bulge on top of the saucer, just like is precedence on later ships.

That was indeed the original plan, but there wasn't enough money to build a new set. Therefore, we ended up with the wardroom made from leftover parts of the Rec Deck

http://forgottentrek.com/designing-the-motion-pictures-officers-lounge/

 

[yotsuya]

My project has led me to make my own drawings of the exterior. I have tried to base them on the best available information. I have had to pull in all my resources to get the details right. There are some views that just never seem to have been photographed. Others have been, but not clearly. The one thing that suprised me in the past couple of days is the lesser markings. The large name and registry markings have been very well documented. Even down to oddities with the N. Having font software, it has been easy to apply those oddities to a base font and put them on the drawings. But the lesser markings have been hard to nail down. For one thing, the 91 restoration screwed them up. I think I know the course of things for the 11 foot model at this point. I don't think the Smithsonian had ever painted it before the 91 restoration. I think they cleaned it and I think the weathering came off in the process. They touched up what they needed to, but the original markings were left intact until 1991. In particular, the decals in 3 spots that had tiny, unreadable text. One of them upside down. I can see them (though not readable) in several pictures from the series and in many pictures of the model on display. They are in a compressed Helvetica font (not Arial as the capital O's are too round). And then there are the 5 numbers along the secondary hull. The 1991 restoration changed the font (not to mention several other things like the warp drive inboard grille) to match the major markings. The didn't. Those 5 numbers were the original pilot font (the 1 and 7 make that clear). The 1991 restoration is so troublesome and knowing the quality of the people working on it has always left me wondering, but I hear they were rushed and didn't have the resources they needed. I just wish they had been more faithful to what they were handed and not made the changes they made. The alternate choices on that version just make things confusing. Many have used the major marking font for these smaller details and that is not accurate.

But I think my external drawings may be finished. Now I just need some time to watch some episodes and find a few more details so I can finish the set plans and the partial deck plans to finish off this project and focus on the TMP refit Enterprise (before I go back to these drawings and make the pilot versions)

 

[Mytran]

My project has led me to make my own drawings of the exterior. I have tried to base them on the best available information. I have had to pull in all my resources to get the details right. There are some views that just never seem to have been photographed. Others have been, but not clearly. The one thing that suprised me in the past couple of days is the lesser markings. The large name and registry markings have been very well documented. Even down to oddities with the N. Having font software, it has been easy to apply those oddities to a base font and put them on the drawings. But the lesser markings have been hard to nail down. For one thing, the 91 restoration screwed them up. I think I know the course of things for the 11 foot model at this point. I don't think the Smithsonian had ever painted it before the 91 restoration. I think they cleaned it and I think the weathering came off in the process. They touched up what they needed to, but the original markings were left intact until 1991. In particular, the decals in 3 spots that had tiny, unreadable text. One of them upside down. I can see them (though not readable) in several pictures from the series and in many pictures of the model on display. They are in a compressed Helvetica font (not Arial as the capital O's are too round). And then there are the 5 numbers along the secondary hull. The 1991 restoration changed the font (not to mention several other things like the warp drive inboard grille) to match the major markings. The didn't. Those 5 numbers were the original pilot font (the 1 and 7 make that clear). The 1991 restoration is so troublesome and knowing the quality of the people working on it has always left me wondering, but I hear they were rushed and didn't have the resources they needed. I just wish they had been more faithful to what they were handed and not made the changes they made. The alternate choices on that version just make things confusing. Many have used the major marking font for these smaller details and that is not accurate.

But I think my external drawings may be finished. Now I just need some time to watch some episodes and find a few more details so I can finish the set plans and the partial deck plans to finish off this project and focus on the TMP refit Enterprise (before I go back to these drawings and make the pilot versions)

I must admit I've never paid such close attention to the font on the labels and smaller areas of the Enterprise.
I salute your level of close analysis!

 

[yotsuya]

I've had some difficulty with the TOS fonts. The version of Amarillo I have was no ideal and may not be quite fine enough. I had to edit a lot of the characters to make them conform to the examples. The changes in the 1, 7, N, and R were relatively easy, but altering the spacing has proven to be the big challenge. The layout of the characters seems to be somewhat manually done and the computer does not want to be so inexact. But it gets the general idea across and for the most part I can customer edit the text to make it any ship in the fleet. Though I draw the line at some of the changes they did for the In A Mirror Darkly Defiant and the Remastered TOS. I did decide to create my own secondary hull grid based on the Phase II drawings and the naturally occuring seams in the wood of the secondary hull (I only used every other one on the Starboard side and mirrored them on the port side, which has different seams). I also, in keeping with the Excelsior and refit Enterprise models, made the port side port holes/ windows slightly different than the starboard side. I need to print them out and pour over them this weekend before I consider releasing them to the world, even in reduced resolution. I also need to standardize the sheet size and rearrange the drawings.

 

[Shaw]

I've had some difficulty with the TOS fonts..

Keep in mind that the decal graphics were hand drawn, so they aren't just rescaled versions of the given type style.

This is my most recent study of the decals used on the 11 foot and 33 inch Enterprise models, and the Galileo model. All of these are hand tracings of the original decal sheet graphics.

Click to enlarge​

It was these traced graphics (above at actual size at 150 dpi) that I used for my studio scale replica of the 33 inch Enterprise...

Click to enlarge​

Also, some parts of the 11 foot model were repainted in the 1974 restoration wiping out many important details that weren't replaced until this more recent restoration.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Problem with that is that there are two rows of windows in the rec room and only one in the lower secondary hull and the windows in the lower secondary hull have a nice botanical garden set inside them. So moving it to the secondary hull doesn't work. Besides, they had a huge mural outside the rec room windows so you can see the spacedock and the starboard warp engine so that really solidifies the placement of the rec room in the ship. We just have to adjust the room design to conform to the exterior of the model. Or, for those who prefer another route, adjust the size or details of the exterior to match the set. But with the set ignoring the undercut, that limits how much you can just resize things to make it fit before you have change something in the set design.

Probert's design nicely accommodated the undercut of the saucer but it's hard to see how the whole crew could have watched a single viewsceen from the lower levels. Realistically, it would have had to be projected on the window wall somehow.

As for the final Reck Deck they ended up with, I don't disagree that the aft section could fit in the 1,000' refit. However, retaining the dimensions as given leads to windows very close to the floor on the balcony and way above head height on the lower level. Lowering the ceiling and raising the centre section to allow for the undercut is of course a necessity (although I fail to see how it would double the capacity, as per your earlier post) but it effectively turns the room into a mezzanine, only accessible by stairs from the main decks of the ship.

That was indeed the original plan, but there wasn't enough money to build a new set. Therefore, we ended up with the wardroom made from leftover parts of the Rec Deck

http://forgottentrek.com/designing-the-motion-pictures-officers-lounge/

I never really found the nacelle in the mural visible until seeing it on this site. In fact, I took that or just a wall or a wall with viewscreens, and that the blue windows were the at the sides of the room, and in the pictures in the quoted post, the side walls do seem to be reflecting some blue.

Perhaps the Director's edition was trying to revise the location of the Rec Room?

In the Director's Edition of TMP, there is a recorded sound of birds singing in the Rec Room. I had made the assumption that the trees apparently visible in the exterior model's blue windows were creating the look of trees not yet installed in the movie. For what it's worth, from a movie's dramatic standpoint, irrespective of the in-universe lineage of starship design, it would make sense for a major scene in the movie to take place in room with a location visible from the outside of the ship.

Maybe the same goes for the officer's lounge, even if the windows are not the right shape. The Director's Edition added to that was well.

What I'm leaning toward in my design for the top of the TOS saucer are those two gray shapes are access hatches for major maintenance or even replacemnt of the impuslse engines and the two small yellow rectangles are airlock elevators like we see in the TMP refit.

Can anyone give me a link to images of all the little numbers on the side of the hull of the TOS? Someone was saying the numbers corresponded to feet from the bow if the ship was half as big?

I see a link for the officer's lounge. Where did you get the TMP artwork by Probert of the actual Rec Room? I'd love to check mroe of that out, even just for the art itself.

 

[yotsuya]

Keep in mind that the decal graphics were hand drawn, so they aren't just rescaled versions of the given type style.

Yes, I have kept that in mind, but I am after a marking layer that I can reconfigure into other ships in the fleet so I need a font that generally matches the studio model. For instance, I had to pad the letters and trim down the numbers to match the spacing used on the model. But I found the N is inconsistent (both in shape and spacing). I could make a font from scratch, but that is a time consuming process.

This is my most recent study of the decals used on the 11 foot and 33 inch Enterprise models, and the Galileo model. All of these are hand tracings of the original decal sheet graphics.

Click to enlarge​

It was these traced graphics (above at actual size at 150 dpi) that I used for my studio scale replica of the 33 inch Enterprise...

Another fantastic drawing from you. Thanks.

Also, some parts of the 11 foot model were repainted in the 1974 restoration wiping out many important details that weren't replaced until this more recent restoration.

That is what I've believed, but I've been questioning this lately. The three small font decals were there until the 1991 restoration and were as yellowed as the decal sheet NASM has. If they repainted those 3 areas, they would have had to replace the decals and there is no sign they did that. The bottom of the saucer still had the grid lines when it went in for the 1991 restoration. That isn't to say some parts weren't painted, but in general it doesn't appear to have been painted. The port side nacelle markings were still original from the pilots. So I've begun thinking that rather than repainting, the NASM staff cleaned it. They cleaned the weathering right off. The photos of how it arrived at NASM show a very dirty model so it adds up. And the NASM have always said they did didn't repaint it. That and the weathering being applied over the finish coat of paint would explain why all the weathering vanished, except on the top of the saucer. So I see the model being cleaned at this point, not repainted (except for touchups). And the 5 hull markings with numbers were all the pilot font until the 1991 restoration. And at that point the secondary hull was as cracked as it was when they took in it in 2014.

I've poured over all the old photos of the model and I can't find more than the three locations with the small text. In most of the photos they just show up as gray areas, but can be seen as different from the other markings. I can't find that any of the other decal texts were ever used. For the current restoration they only made the three decals so I don't think the NASM team found any additional ones either. And I believe all the other markings were painted on in the most recent work.

 

[yotsuya]

Can anyone give me a link to images of all the little numbers on the side of the hull of the TOS? Someone was saying the numbers corresponded to feet from the bow if the ship was half as big?

From the front to back of the secondary hull they are 102, 705, 1300, 1384, and 1837 They could be inches from the base of the deflector assembly for a shorter version, but they don't match inches, feet, cm or anything identifiable on the final model. They are proportionally spaced so they measure something, but not any unit we are familiar with.

Actually, I took a second look, and the numbers aren't exact. So they really don't mean anything. They might be a beam number. That would vary over distance if the beams vary in spacing. But that would never line up to any standard unit of measurement.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

From the front to back of the secondary hull they are 102, 705, 1300, 1384, and 1837 They could be inches from the base of the deflector assembly for a shorter version, but they don't match inches, feet, cm or anything identifiable on the final model. They are proportionally spaced so they measure something, but not any unit we are familiar with.

Thank you for the information. Since the refit has NCC-1701 or "Enterprise" at hatches in similar places (like the travel pod hatch), I'd like to suggest these numbers be treated, at least theoretically, as possible registries for other ships that use the same secondary hull design. Just gives us more TOS-era NCC numbers to play with.

 

[Mytran]

Can anyone give me a link to images of all the little numbers on the side of the hull of the TOS? Someone was saying the numbers corresponded to feet from the bow if the ship was half as big?

You are correct that they correspond (mostly) to the number of inches when measured from the front of the secondary hull (based on a conceptual 540' Enterprise, back when the Bridge was more like a cockpit)

I see a link for the officer's lounge. Where did you get the TMP artwork by Probert of the actual Rec Room? I'd love to check mroe of that out, even just for the art itself.

After a little Googling, I think I narrowed it down:
http://forgottentrek.com/designing-the-motion-pictures-recreation-deck/

Incidentally, while trying to reverse-engineer where I found the Probert image, I rediscovered Dan Govier's excellent work on building a 3D model of the refit. This section deals with how he tackled the Rec Deck, with very creative results!

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/refit-1701-a-3d-model-full-interior.276201/page-7

 

[yotsuya]

That is incorrect. Those numbers do not fit with a 540 foot Enterprise at all. It would be much smaller - 400 feet with a secondary hull of 145 feet. And as the numbers were assigned AFTER the ship's size was set, that really makes no sense. In ship and aircraft construction it would refer to the frame number. The spacing would be about every 6 cm. But the most important thing to keep in mind - THOSE NUMBERS ARE NOT EVENLY SPACED. They are not on a scale. They are somewhat random. They don't align to any known size of the ship or any known unit of measurement. They are random decorations. Text greebles essentially.

 

[Shaw]

Okay, lets talk about the origin of those numbers.

Datin was hired before the final plans were ready. He was given the earlier plans for the Enterprise so he could get started with notes from Jefferies what not to build.

The final plans were of the model itself, and didn't have the markings yet (or windows, as they were a later request of Roddenberry). Jefferies utilized a copy of the earlier plans when drawing out the markings... plans that included callouts for various spots in inches.

Remember, both Jefferies and Datin are working under a massive time crunch. They have to have models ready for shooting soon enough to get the pilot finished and approved if the show is going to make it for running in 1965 (which it didn't, because it wasn't approved).

The numbers were a mistake on Datin's part, but Roddenberry liked them (Roddenberry was asking for more details), so they were kept and later applied to the 11 foot model. The position of the numbers didn't matter, they were just more detailing. But if you plot out the numbers in inches against the original secondary hull you get this...

Click to enlarge​

This also explains the shape of the secondary hull of the 33 inch model. I'm guessing that for the 11 foot model Datin elected to stay with the shape (rather than Jefferies curvier final design) because it would be easier to turn and they'd finish the model faster (it was late anyways, and only used for the bridge zoom-in shot).

A lot of this stuff is on my demo site. It isn't ready for primetime yet, but might be useful.

 

[yotsuya]

The only problem with them being actual measurements is that they don't line up to anything. The way they were applied to both models for The Cage is identical and very random. There is also a question of timing. The photos of the 11 foot model in the street shows no signs of those or some of the other details added before filming (some of the markings and weathering on the saucer). And Datin was adamant later that he didn't add any details. The weathering on the top of the saucer is there to see on film for The Cage and all subsequent appearances (it was changed between The Cage and the series). So as far as I'm concerned, those numbers have no meaning as measurements.

 

[Shaw]

On the models, they have no in-universe meaning. They are there for Roddenberry.

As for timing... the numbers are on the 33 inch model when delivered on December 14, 1964. The 33 inch model was the final reference for all the elements to be included on the 11 foot model. On the 14th the 11 foot model wasn't finished, but they needed the 33 inch model to get some of the effects shots done.

The 33 inch model and 11 foot model wouldn't come back together until after the street photo on December 29, 1964. Once they were together at Howard A. Anderson's studio, the rest of the details of the 33 inch model were applied to the 11 foot model. There is no secret or nefarious reason for the absence of the numbers when the 11 foot model was photographed outside Production Model Shop in Burbank... they just didn't have the references needed to finish it at that location.

Like the small signage added to the 11 foot model for the series, it was there to add detailing... and they made a lot more signage on the decal sheet than they ended up applying to the model.

I'm willing to talk about the actual history of the models (when I can), but this is your project on an in-universe Enterprise and you'll need to decide on the meaning of this type of stuff. I don't want to derail that.

 

[Mytran]

Thanks for the summary @Shaw and correcting my half remembered explanation!

If we're back to talking in-universe, were those numbers actually visible on screen in any episode?

 

[yotsuya]

It is one of those things I'm going to include but not try to explain.

My understanding is that the size was finalized before the drawings were sent to Datin so as far as I'm concerned, 947 is the only length for either of the models. it fits the ports, it fits the bridge, it fits just about every detail. I know some want to make it bigger, but her designer had everything figured out at that size and it shows.

 

[yotsuya]

I've spent a lot of time going over the photos of the 11 foot model and I've found a number of items where the drawings we have from such sources as Sinclair, Casimiro, Shaw, and even the CG orthos from Petri Blomqvist, do not match the original studio model. I confirmed that all they did in 1974 at NASM was to clean and retouch the model. It was not painted. So other than the weathering and grid lines which were cleaned off, the model is original. In particular, there are some windows painted on the bottom of the saucer just in front of the neck. All these sources have 3 and the 91 refit had 3, but before that there were only 2 and they are divided perfectly along the centerline. What I can see in the production photos only shows the shadow of 2. There never was a third window until 1991. Another is the location of the innermost groove on the bottom of the saucer (which located the front of the neck). Sinclair, Casimiro, and Shaw have it up in the undercut from the elevations where the photos show that it is just below the bottom of the saucer making it visible in the elevations.

Evidently quite a bit of the model was "refreshed" with a light coat of pain in 1984, further obscuring some of the original details. But there still were only two windows. Yet all the small markings and decals remained. So it was not a complete paint job. That was first done in 1991. They did mess up a few things in 84. They got the smaller gray box the wrong color on the bottom for one and they pained over several areas that were not originally the same color.

And while many focus on the 1991 refit getting the grid lines and weathering wrong, there is a list of other things done wrong that time. The inner grille on the warp engine was replaced with a different pattern (it went from a single sized hole on a grid pattern to two different sized holes on a double grid pattern), the small decals were removed and not replaced with the same text (or in one case not replaced at all), and the small numbers on the side of the secondary hull were redone in the series font instead of being in the pilot font like they were before 1991. And more.

And while I think the current restoration is superb, I'm not 100% sure they got all the details correct. They got what they could document, but I see hints of more in the photos and the current state is far too clean compared to the old photos. I think it is lacking a certain depth from the constant work between 1964 and 1967. I think the top of the saucer has a certain life and the rest of the model is too clinically correct. Appearing very one layer instead of the many layers over time that the original had that they scrubbed off in 1974.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Okay, lets talk about the origin of those numbers.

Datin was hired before the final plans were ready. He was given the earlier plans for the Enterprise so he could get started with notes from Jefferies what not to build.

The final plans were of the model itself, and didn't have the markings yet (or windows, as they were a later request of Roddenberry). Jefferies utilized a copy of the earlier plans when drawing out the markings... plans that included callouts for various spots in inches.

Remember, both Jefferies and Datin are working under a massive time crunch. They have to have models ready for shooting soon enough to get the pilot finished and approved if the show is going to make it for running in 1965 (which it didn't, because it wasn't approved).

The numbers were a mistake on Datin's part, but Roddenberry liked them (Roddenberry was asking for more details), so they were kept and later applied to the 11 foot model. The position of the numbers didn't matter, they were just more detailing. But if you plot out the numbers in inches against the original secondary hull you get this...

Click to enlarge​

This also explains the shape of the secondary hull of the 33 inch model. I'm guessing that for the 11 foot model Datin elected to stay with the shape (rather than Jefferies curvier final design) because it would be easier to turn and they'd finish the model faster (it was late anyways, and only used for the bridge zoom-in shot).

A lot of this stuff is on my demo site. It isn't ready for primetime yet, but might be useful.

So the numbers line up, but not completely with this version of the ship.

Does this mean the ship could have looked like in the earlier diagrams during April's command at then it was changed for Pike?

If these numbers are going to used be at all, other than for meaningless labels, I repeat my suggestion they be treated as additional TOS-era NCC numbers, since the refit has similar markings with its registry at docking ports and other features. I freely admit that such a suggestion may be outside of the scope of the original poster's project, though