Today I continued with the floorplan of the Turbolift. I thought about using info from the plans of the DS9 Set recreation, since Robert hasn’t posted his work yet, but after a few moments I threw that idea straight out of the window. I guess the same goes for the rest of the recreation blueprints from DS9…
I started my own 3D model with the turbolift as my proof of concept, and had been relying on the T&T plans, but came to realize that those plans, and the on-screen results, are way off in many aspects. Now when I watch the Lt. Watley segments I cannot unsee how bad that turbolift really is. Almost nothing about it is correct, and some things are exactly backwards. (It sucks, because I love this episode.)
Is there common ground on the width of the space between the wall panels, meaning the silver stripe inbetween? In the DS9 plans the Detail shows it as 1 inch, but that feels far too narrow to be honest.
I started using 1" (scaled of course) in my model, but have come to question it. I think Robert has a diagram somewhere that says 1.5"? Anyway, one thing to keep in mind is that for the curved corridor, you will likely end up with different widths on the inboard vs. outboard walls because one is convex while the other is concave. I think Desilu made some compromises because of this, and I've noticed that we don't clearly see the joints on the inboard side as much as we do those on the outboard side.
I don't have the answer, but the more I work on the physical model, the more I find myself thinking in terms of the materials that would have been available to Desilu. I suspect this gap is based on the width of a 2x4, which would be 1.5". The question is, would they have shaved one side on an angle, as the T&T plans suggest, or would they have just abutted the two adjoining panels right up against the 2x4 and rotated them a few degrees to get the needed angle? (An angle which I have measured on the Babel plan to generally vary from about 2 to 7 degrees in the curved corridor, since the panel widths vary a lot.)
If it was the latter, then the gaps will be narrower than 1.5" on the outboard side and wider than 1.5" on the inboard side. I'm guessing they used standard 2" foil tape along the 2x4's edge and just folded it around the corners, so this could have worked out all right in either method.
Also have you, Robert, or anyone else reading along here, have measurements for the wall panels segments? 4 ft is relatively common, bit there are quite a few exceptions. Panels with doors need to be wider because regular double pocket doors alone seem to be 4 ft wide and Turbolift Pocket Doors 3 ft 6“ if I‘m not mistaken.
Yeah, there's a lot of variation, in order to maintain the roughly circular shape of the corridor. I've used the Babel set plan and tried to measure the length of each individual segment, then reduced for my scale and converted to millimeters, then rounded to the nearest 5mm so I don't lose my mind, and finally checked to make sure everything ends up where it needs to be.
Same goes for the small gap between the wall panels and the floor…
Yeah, also tricky. I've settled on a height of 1" there, which I think (hope?) is in the ballpark and also corresponds pretty closely to 3mm at scale. I've standardized a lot of things at 3 and 5mm because those are widths of plywood I can easily obtain. It could easily be 1.5 or 2", though, so I might need to modify my design.
But another reason I like the smaller value is that the floor gap does not always exist, and there are lots of places where transitions must happen. Below you can see three discontinuities: at the turn into the ladder alcove, at the pocket for the door, and at the corridor intersection column. It's not so noticeable when the camera is moving and a story is guiding your attention, but more noticeable when you are investigating a static model. So I have a bias toward the smaller gap size.
Cropped from an image provided by TrekCore.
