Hey, I never noticed that before....

Thanks for the info! I'm pretty sure the scene I noticed in The Omega Glory was flopped for directional continuity because it made Kirk look in the direction that fit the established scene IIRC.

 

It looks less like an ice scraper now. That thing could be a paint brush, a whisk broom, or possibly a novelty flashlight. Maybe a photographer's light meter, or an electric flash attachment for a professional camera. The red and white colors might have been a prop man's paint job.

 

I prepared a response to this without noticing all the replies it already had! Oopsie.
Anyway, I went to the trouble of clipping some shots so here they are:


Whatever he's carrying is certainly paintbrush in shape, but only the handle is red. The while oval on the black "bristle" area make me think it's actually a prop, maybe a scanner of some sort (if the white oval is a screen). It's too consistent in shape to be a mere reflection IMO.
I wonder if it turned up anywhere else?

 

Yeah, upon reflection (), that white part is no reflection. @Mytran is right; the shape stays the same. And so much for my dumb theory that it was part of Ferris' raiment. The guy holding it also has a pretty rigid grip on it, keeping it in the same fixed position relative to his evidently clenched hand as he dramatically strolls between Kirk and Uhura. Given his direction of travel, it's as though he was taking advantage of Spock's absence to paint the library computer station.

 

Ok, we possibly have a paint brush with a bright red/orange handle and white bristles with residual black paint on the bristle tips. The base of the handle has some sort of tip or different color on it. Maybe for hanging on a wall peg? You'd think that retouching the paint on a starship would be a function for a red shirt crew rather than a gold shirt.

 

Oh absolutely. In all those cases I knew it was done for continuity or some other reason. I just never found out why they did it for Enemy Within

 

I'm almost afraid to ask: what happened to Greg?

 

It looks like a labelmaker(?)/tape applier.

 

Not just paint on the tips, but on the side and base of the bristles too.
To my eyes It's more like black bristles with a splodge of white on one side.

He should at least be dressed in the TOS coveralls, right?!

 

That's very sad. I don't know how I missed it, but thanks.

 

Brightened up.


Zoomed and cropped.


An ice scraper for heavy ice locations is my guess. The pointy nubs help break thick ice. The serrations carry on to scrapers today.

 

If the white part is the scraper, what do you make of the black border around it?

 

I think we're looking at more than one thing. It's probably a commonplace paintbrush handle with the bristles removed or covered, and the top part could be as simple as a piece of packing Styrofoam™ that's been painted up to suggest some detail. Call it a hybridized or compound prop.

Also, if it were meant to be noticed, I think I would have noticed it during the 25 years I never missed an episode in syndication, give or take a day. It was meant to register unconsciously at most, to suggest a bit of background detail for realism.

 

Maybe it's a cleaning brush for the consoles. God only knows how much coffee has been spilt when the ship gets tossed around.

 

For me, it is a lighting artifact of light glinting off the scrapper in an odd way.

Optional thoughts.
One idea I had and discarded, the nubs were a kind of built in stand for setting it down without the brushes touching the surface. But having painted a few hundred thousand yards of surface in my life, the last thing I would want is more weight on the brush. Maybe they glued something on? Maybe.

Googling both options nets similar results for both.
Orange is used for both vintage scrapper and paint brush handles, but I could not find vintage brushes with white bristles. Black, tan or gray only. I could find vintage scrappers with metal blades but not find vintage scrappers with nubs.

At the end of the day, excepting some miracle evidence is entered, I don't think we're going to attain a 100% consensus either way.

I think the black border is either 1. an alteration to the prop to attempt to disguise it or, most likely IMO, 2. a lighting artifact of light glinting off the scrapper in an odd way.

While I could not find a suitable img, I remember using similar scrappers with ice hammers attached a long time ago in Montana in winter so that is why I chose scraper.

And rock dust.

 

Charlie X - Charles Xavier???

 

Spock's hairbrush.

 

Where?

 

This is clearly an editing issue, which occured multiple times in the third season, but I just noticed something while watching "THE THOLIAN WEB" on Pluto.

In the end, when McCoy, Chapel, and the transporter guy are in the transporter room, we watch him use the controls. He is a Lt. In a later shot, only seconds later, we see a hand using the controls, but the rank shows a lt. cmdr., which would clearly be Scotty from a previous time.

This is a favorite episode of mine, and I have seen it many, many times. I can't believe that in 35 years of being a fan, I never saw this before.