The 11 foot model and the panel lines

Correct? Maybe not, but it did look pretty good in some shots of the initial display after Ed's work - http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XNPD380IpBQ/ShgZqWNCkXI/AAAAAAAAGE4/t0RzNyrs7xk/s1600/P155_34.jpg

 

Not so much; only the fact that it is the Enterprise.

 

I probably could have linked the thread, eh? :/
https://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/99-s...-original-nacelle-domes-11-ft-enterprise.html

 

"The original model was smooth and didn't show any lines or marks except for the lettering and numbers. The Smithsonian had scribed lines to indicate panels, changing the character of the whole model." - The Enterprise NCC 1701 and the Model Maker, N. Datin McDonald and Richard C. Datin Jr.

As I said upstream, I saw the model the day the Air and Space Museum opened. While some details are up for the debate, there were absolutely zero ham-handed panel lines; at most there were penciled lines. I think we can reasonably assume that Paramount did not refinish the model before sending it to the Smithsonian. I saw the model several dozen times over many years, and there was never any indication of lines like Miarecki did until...Miarecki.

It's obvious that you respect his work. I think you're largely alone in that opinion. I'll grant you the possibility that he might have kept damage from becoming worse than it otherwise would have. Beyond that, he was arrogrant, foolish, and absolutely no kind of archvist or conservationist. He either was incapable of doing the work, or he didn't care to. I think the joke decals point to the latter. He should not have been allowed to touch the model. If his feeling are hurt by this, I couldn't give a rat's.

 

Well, there is an eye witness to everything that has transpired to the model since it arrived in Ed's care. Gary Kerr had access to the model in 1991 and again this last time. They have posted tons of photos of it and fans have posted tons of photos of it. Gary said Ed painted the lines. The photos say Ed painted the lines. There is zero evidence of a single scratch where Ed put the lines (except for the natural seam where the wood and metal meet on the nacelles - and you can see the difference between that and the others). There have been zero comments about repairing what Ed did and very public comments that much of his work was very accurate and good considering his limited access to goo source materials. He was not a conservator and did a few things no conservator would ever do, but as I continue to study the photos of his work, it is clear every marking he applied was painted on (you can see the cracks from age and how smooth it is around the lines).

The weathering along the front edge of the saucer and the weathering below the rings on the saucer are virtually the same now as they were in his version. I can see many of the details he added in several of the photos that have been around for years. But you really need to stop saying he scribed lines (as in added grooves on the surface) because he absolutely did not do that. He replicated the series grid pattern on the bottom and edge of the saucer and added a complementary grid on the secondary hull and nacelles that there is no evidence for. He over did the weathering on much of it, but but he did not in any way damage the model and in fact did an excellent job of restoring it and helping it last another 25 years. The NASM has added support rings and changed the way the model is mounted so they in 25 years they don't have to do the same thing again. From a physical restoration standpoint, Ed's work was a A+. From finishing standpoint, it was a B- (nailed the hull color, nailed most of the details, but got creative and overdid the weathering).

 

Also, if you were there when the model first went on display in 1974, it had been cleaned. Literally scrubbed with light abrasive (like Comet or Ajax or the like) and all the series weathering and much of the grid lines on the bottom of the saucer were gone or too faint to make out. In 1984 they gave her a dusting of paint that further obscured the lines, but in the photos Gary Kerr has posted online of the model at the start of the 1991 work, the lines are very clear in his up close photos. And the lines are very clear in a great many of the production photos that have come to light and the NASM has a huge collection of photos (very clear high res photos, not screen caps) that they have used to document every line and detail of the current restoration. Ed added 7 rings on the secondary hull and 2 on each Nacelle that were never there, but otherwise his work was closer to how the model looked in 1969 at the end of production than it had since it had been cleaned in 1974.

 

I think most of us agree that, regardless of his restoration work to the structure of the model, Mr. Miarecki applied a non-historically acccurate, butt-ugly paint job.

 

If you average the what it looked like at the NASM before and after Ed's work. It comes really close to before NASM and how it looks today. I don't consider Ed's work as bad as the scrubbing that removed the original finish.

 

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I've heard it said that what Ed did was paint it like he would have painted a new special effects model for a new tv series, exaggerating the weathering, which would be toned down on film by blazing studio lights. Unfortunately that wasn't the final venue, and also unfortunately he added lots of stuff that wasn't there in the first place.

 

I wouldn't call 11 lines lots of stuff.

And one of the things I realized, is that when you make a model for real item,you look at the pictures and you exaggerate what you see in the pictures on the model. Problem is it did that on a model from pictures of the model I didn't account for that difference. I think that is why the weathering was so overdone. I just can't figure out why he wasn't using the top of the saucer as a guide for how intense the weathering should be on the rest of the model. Hearing that he was rushed to finish on time and didn't have very good source material (even before Star Trek came out on DVD) does make sense. Knowing that Jefferies had those same lines on his Phase II Enterprise plans and that the one line on the nacelle is a join that he weathered and duplicated two more times aft of it (one of which I think there is done evidence for in the photos) means he wasn't just making this up. He researched and found enough to make him think that was right. And for the last 25 years many versions of the TOS Enterprise have replicated those lines, though not very many have used that degree of weathering. We now know the grid on the bottom of the saucer was really there for the series. But 20 years ago on the IFIC page the site's author was adamant that only the top had grid lines. Even with the photo evidence I had at the time I knew that was not true, but the photos since have revealed how strong it really was. Not quite what Ed did, but far more than I would have guessed.

 

Honestly, people at the time knew the paintjob was wrong. Even then there were enough behind-the-scenes photos to make that readily apparent. Ed chose unwisely.

 

I wonder if the FJ blueprints just stood out in his mind as this looks how one would imagine the TOS Enterprise right before the refit....

 

The FJ blueprints have a grid on the neck, but nothing on the secondary hull or nacelles. It was the Phase II drawings that have the grid on the secondary hull and I believe he added the lines on the nacelles because one is a natural seam and several photos have a hint of the second one (that the NASM could not confirm) and the third one would be if they were evenly spaced. But the secondary hull lines come from the Phase II drawings - they are the same rings with no horizontal cross lines.

 

My point is that some argued that the lines should only be on the top of the saucer. There was plenty of evidence that it was all over the saucer. So a lot of the early argument was about the bottom of the saucer, not the secondary hull. Many were absolutely positive there were no lines on the bottom of the saucer because Datin said so and the model in the NASM lacked any noticeable lines from 74 to 91. That view has been proven wrong and that part of what Ed did has been vindicated. Nothing can vindicate hiss heavy weathering, I only mean to make sense of it in light of his areas of expertise and the circumstances of the day.

 

You can't blame people for not seeing grid lines that must have been extremely thin and faint:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x18hd/thelightsofzetarhd0009.jpg

Somebody correct me on this, but supposedly the pencil lines on top of the saucer were demanded by Roddenberry, and so strongly opposed by Matt Jefferies that he purposely drew them too faint to "read" on camera. If there were any on the underside, the same story must apply.

 

Well, if you look through the production photos and look at the model today fully restored, you will see that the top of the saucer is heavily weathered where the bottom is only weathered around the grid lines. So the lines are enhanced rather than obscured like the top of the saucer. So Ed did the right thing, he just didn't make them soft enough except for a couple of areas which he got about right.

 

It only looks passably "good" in that picture because it's washed out from a camera flash. Under the normal lighting conditions in the pre-2016 display case, it was a hideously garish nightmare. I liken it to the purposely overdone camp makeup you see in drag acts.

 

I would, plus the associated hideous excess weathering that went with those lines, NONE OF WHICH BELONGED THERE. He painted her up like a whore.

 

When I saw it in 2006, it was very jarring. It didn't look right.