@Shaw, I have a question you can feel free to ignore: Did you work any with Eaglemoss on their Phase II-version of the Enterprise?
Thanks a ton guys! I've made some more progress, but I'm waiting for a more stable internet connection to upload stuff. My wife said I'll have that by Wednesday. So it isn't that I don't like the refit, it is more that it doesn't inspire the same level of OCD that I've had for some other subjects. From a model building perspective, this version helps fill in the gaps (much like the Phase II Enterprise) in the transition from the TOS Enterprise to the final refit. There are a lot of elements that were improved on in the final refit. And yeah I was thinking about going down the Tikopai class route at one point (it would most likely have been either the K'ushui or Betelgeuse). I could have avoided the pinstriping and had the more familiar decal setup, but in the end I really wanted to see the earlier version of the Enterprise. No, I wasn't contacted by Eaglemoss for their Phase II Enterprise... though they sure seemed to have used a lot of my research and analysis (including my cleanup and arrangement of Jefferies plans). Could they have hunted down all of the same sources and spoke with the same people I did? Sure. A lot of my info came from the research I had done on the 33 inch TOS Enterprise, and the real push forward on the project came after I was contacted by Brick Price back in 2012. Price is still around and I'm sure most of the details I relied on are still out there, so they surely could have done all that leg work on their own. Is it odd that they didn't contact me? A little. I made most of my info freely available, so I guess they didn't need to. But even the Smithsonian's restoration team reached out to me on the 11 foot Enterprise (though I had nothing to offer they didn't already have), so you'd think Eaglemoss might have contacted me on the Phase II Enterprise. In the end, you kinda have to be philosophical about it. I research and document the works of some great artists to share their works with others. I am not one of the artists, so my part shouldn't over shadow their talents. Eaglemoss did a good presentation of the work of Jefferies, Price and Loos, and now a lot more people know of their work. And that was really the goal of all my work, so I'm happy with the end result.
Yeah, I'd seen some nice models made from that kit. So I had really hope to get much further along, but this is where she is at right now... Click to enlarge If I had gotten out and printed the last sheet of decals, she'd have looked more like this... Click to enlarge ... but she doesn't.
So this is what that old South Bend toy was trying to look like... talk about roads not taken! That one slightly inset panel next to the engineering hull's docking bay - is that supposed to be that sliding picture window out onto Earth/drydock that Harold Michelson wanted so bad for the cargo bay set? If so, impressive (even by this model's sky-high standards) attention to detail!
Too much red striping for my tastes, but very interesting! The 11' model of the TOS Enterprise now sitting in the Smithsonian famously was never shot from the port side because that's where they hid all the wiring. The 8' refit Enterprise miniature built for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was sort of the opposite--we hardly ever saw the starboard side of that ship for the longest time, and that partly was because its motion control armature was connected on that side, right where you see that large panel that doesn't quite fit correctly. (We didn't see the starboard side of the refit Enterprise at all in TMP; it wasn't seen until the escape scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, when the Enterprise started crawling away from the mortally-wounded Reliant.) That's my long way of saying that the company who made this model seems to have replicated the not-quite-seamless fit of the removable panel on the starboard side of the 8' refit Enterprise studio miniature, which seems a curious choice to me. (This takes nothing away from the work that @Shaw has done here... red pinstripes aside this is a spiffy model!)
The pinstripes would not have been so noticeable as they would have been much thinner than depicted here. The ones that are on the filming miniature (separation line and around the phasers) are what they'd have been like. Also, see the Reliant filming miniature (link).
In all honesty, this is what I've come to expect from Eaglemoss. They also just went along and used Mark Rademaker's model of the XCV Enterprise as an actual prop in Into Darkness. That sorted itself out in the end but it was kind of a fuck up you would not expect from a company like that...
Honestly the artistic liberties Eaglemoss took with the Phase II model always bugged me because I was so familiar with your research and model of the ship, and I was bummed because I was worried the Eaglemoss design would be what gets set in stone as how the franchise represents that design. I was so happy to see that for STO's big anniversary thing recently that not only did they add the Phase II Connie but that they clearly directly based it on your work, all the way down to the specific color and finish of the bussard collectors. No idea if Cryptic consulted you either, but it felt awesome to see Jefferies' work finally be so faithfully brought to life, and especially knowing it was thanks to the incredible work you did that I've been admiring for years.
I'm not sure how much interest there is in this, but I figured I would share some of my additional research on the Hand Lasers. To start, there were four Hand Lasers made for "The Cage"... two hero versions and two background/stunt versions. The main visual difference that can be seen on screen is the inclusion of the flip-up sight and cavity for it on the upper surface of the hero versions. Both hero Hand Lasers were functional (they lit up when the trigger was suppressed), but only the Hero 2 Hand Laser had the telescoping barrel. Similarly, only one of the background Hand Lasers included the telescoping barrel. The Hero 1 Hand Laser is also unique in having a large rectangular cavity cut into the left side with two magnets embedded in it. None of the other Hand Lasers were that heavily modified. All of them included wire clips for attaching to the Individual Equipment Belts used in the pilots, but the clip is oddly missing from the Hero 2 Hand Laser when Spock draws it in WNMHGB. The wire clips seem to have been embedded in the body of the Hand Lasers, so they may not have been that secure when actors grabbed for the props. The last thing of interest is that the two background Hand Lasers are not seen again after "The Cage". All additional appearances of the Hand Lasers in the series are of the two hero versions. The following images show the modifications made to the hero Hand Lasers between the two pilot episodes... http://www.shawcomputing.net/racerx/trek_stuff/plans/updates/handlaser_mods_01.jpg http://www.shawcomputing.net/racerx/trek_stuff/plans/updates/handlaser_mods_02.jpg
Lots! Awesome. Thank you! Can you definitively say which hero prop appeared in which of the post-pilot TOS episodes? I assume that we are talking about "The Man Trap" and "What Are Little Girls Made of?" and no other episodes (besides the archival footage of "The Cage" in parts 1 and 2 of "The Menagerie")? Also, were the props modified in any way for use in the post-pilot episodes?
Wasit Mandell who drew the Pike era weopon as rounded in the back. So help me I had a false memory of it looking that way. Here we are https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lca...l/USS-Enterprise-Officers-Manual_Page_059.jpg