Excelsior Technical Manual (Third Time's The Charm?)

[yotsuya]

If you go by how the model is painted, there are five phaser pairs on the top of the saucer, five phaser pairs on the bottom of the saucer, and a quad phaser emplacement on the bottom of the secondary hull. the only thing she is missing from the motion picture Enterprise is phasers on the stern above the hanger. But she does have more phasers than the movie Enterprise. Which has three pairs top three pairs bottom one pair aft and a quad on the bottom.

 

[calamity_si]

If you go by how the model is painted, there are five phaser pairs on the top of the saucer, five phaser pairs on the bottom of the saucer, and a quad phaser emplacement on the bottom of the secondary hull. the only thing she is missing from the motion picture Enterprise is phasers on the stern above the hanger. But she does have more phasers than the movie Enterprise. Which has three pairs top three pairs bottom one pair aft and a quad on the bottom.

I think I see where you mean. It's frustrating because most of the original model views of the underside have that section cut out for the model's mounting rod. BTW I MUST share your amazing Google site called 'Excelsior - The Great Experiment' to anyone who's a fan of this ship. It simply is one of the BEST resources of model pics of all variations of this ship on the entire web. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for creating this, yotsuya.

 

[calamity_si]

Oh, btw, I've just struck GOLD in regards to free downloadable technical manuals. You guys probably are already well aware of this resource. If so, forgive me for reposting it here. But for those who are unaware, this site offers EVERY SINGLE EVER Star Trek technical manual in PDF form. For Free. Don't say Uncle Calamity doesn't give you anything for Christmas! LINK FOR FREE MANUALS

 

[yotsuya]

That is a cool site. I'll have to check it out. I have most of the manuals to a point but they are hard to dig out so having pdf copies would be awesome.

And here is the full resolution of the best image of the bottom of the secondary hull.

Here is an older one but it isn't very clear.

And in a composited effect from ST:III

And a nice clear picture of the area where the refit Enterprise does have phasers

And on the bottom of that same section with items that are not identified. Though the largest two cylinders are almost definitely photon torpedo tubes (the end cap matched the forward tubes). But some of the other items could be more limited aft phasers.

 

[calamity_si]

Sweeeet! Those high rez images will definitely be of good use for when I rework those sections. And yes, I can clearly see those belly turrets. Wow, I don't think I ever noticed those before. Even now, the old girl has a few surprises! Once my 'pure' Excelsior is complete, I have a nifty idea of a new variant that I'd like to do....but I'll make another post about that.

 

[137th Gebirg]

That is a cool site. I'll have to check it out. I have most of the manuals to a point but they are hard to dig out so having pdf copies would be awesome.

And here is the full resolution of the best image of the bottom of the secondary hull.

Here is an older one but it isn't very clear.

And in a composited effect from ST:III

And a nice clear picture of the area where the refit Enterprise does have phasers

And on the bottom of that same section with items that are not identified. Though the largest two cylinders are almost definitely photon torpedo tubes (the end cap matched the forward tubes). But some of the other items could be more limited aft phasers.

Beautiful! Thanks very much for sharing these.

 

[Tallguy]

Yowza! It's not much that I haven't seen before but it's all in one place and organized.

Which leads me to re-think: People didn't learn to like the Excelsior more, the film makers just finally learned how to shoot it to not look terrible. (And ILM had the audacity to say the Enterprise was hard to find good angles for!)

 

[calamity_si]

Progress so far showing how I'm matching the hull to the image. I'm going for that nice 'deep' hull of the original rather than the shallow Jein model's look. My only issue is where I'm pointing with the red arrow. At the moment, the hull has a nice regular curve, but you can see there that the angle of the curve deviates a bit. I'm not sure whether to keep the curve as it is or match the hull curve from the image.

 

[yotsuya]

I hope this photos help.

This one ^ was my main source with others helping me refine the details.

This one might be even better.

The curve is definitely more pronounced that what I see you have. And remember this was hand sculpted so there could be some anomalies that don't flow quite right when redrawing it in CG. That deflector dish recess could break the flow resulting in different curves in front of it. I tweaked this are probably more than any other on the entire ship.

 

[calamity_si]

Those are insanely useful, thanks so much yotsuya. I just wasn't sure if the abnormality was simply the recessed deflector area cutout, causing some kind of optical illusion.... Ok, considering what you've said, and the fact that this was originally hand sculpted, I'm gonna go ahead and amend the curve.

 

[calamity_si]

Ok, progress so far. The bow curve now fits perfectly. As does the rear section of the 2ndry hull, which I've been working on. I'm going to move on to the navigational deflector cut out next...

 

[yotsuya]

I don't know if it is clear, but the edge between the front/sides and the aft/bottom is rounded.

 

[Rekkert]

Nice to see a 3D model being produced out of all this research!
As a fellow fan of the Excelsior, I've been doing some 3D models for the TNG era USS Potemkin in my free time, I don't want to hijack the thread, so I'll just post some links:
USS Potemkin bridge
USS Potemkin briefing room
USS Potemkin sickbay

I've been researching into doing a shuttlebay next (for the doors on the back end of the ship, rather than the one located behind the deflector dish), and having an accurate model of the exterior shape would certainly make things easier.

 

[USS Firefly]

What a beautiful ship.
Instead of ''Enterprise'' we should had a ''Star Trek : Excelsior'' show with Sulu.

 

[calamity_si]

What a beautiful ship.
Instead of ''Enterprise'' we should had a ''Star Trek : Excelsior'' show with Sulu.

Agreed. I was actually thinking of doing some concept artwork for an animated series, similar in style to the 70's TAS, but with Sulu and crew from the Excelsior.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Nice to see a 3D model being produced out of all this research!
As a fellow fan of the Excelsior, I've been doing some 3D models for the TNG era USS Potemkin in my free time, I don't want to hijack the thread, so I'll just post some links:
USS Potemkin bridge
USS Potemkin briefing room
USS Potemkin sickbay

I've been researching into doing a shuttlebay next (for the doors on the back end of the ship, rather than the one located behind the deflector dish), and having an accurate model of the exterior shape would certainly make things easier.

Just popped in to express how much I love your work! I can't wait to see more bridges, more briefing rooms and more sickbays.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Oh wow, I haven't seen most of Rekkert's stuff. Excellent work and contributions! Could we see a collab in the works?

Mark

 

[yotsuya]

I've been busy working on my own cross section. While it might look like I've taken a break to do some TOS and TMP projects, they are related as I'm trying to work out the logic of the internal configuration. I see a nice progression from NX-01 to TOS 1701 to refit 1701 and then NX-2000 then NCC-2000 and then 1701-B with 1701-A paralleling the Excelsior class. I'm going to use the TMP warp core for 2000 and the TNG warp core for 1701-A and 1701-B.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Once more onto the breach, dear friends.

For the, like, five of you who may remember me, this is not an early April Fool's joke. I have returned to hopefully finish this once and for all.

I have not yet had time to read every post on this forum, but I want to share my thoughts as hopefully you keep bringing more information to the table about the most-often-seen class of ship in the Star Trek universe.

I presently favor the larger Excelsior size, near to that of the Enterprise-D, since effects were often rendered at that size, but what I really want to see is a graphic of the size comparison when its DEFLECTOR DISH is made the same size as the refit's dish.

I also think the Grissom's windows suggest it could be scaled up to about 360 meters, with a bridge dome roughly the size of the refit's, and also that its nacelles are a step towards the Excelsior, since they are similar.

The Excelsior's secondary hull has a long undercut, while the Ambassador has a shorter one, and a bigger saucer. I see the Ambassador as an upfitted Excelsior moreso than its own class of ship, hence it is more filled out with equipment, but very much similar to the Excelsior in technological equipment, especially in Probert's concept.

 

[yotsuya]

I'm not a big fan of changing the scale. I think the scale Andrew Probert set works. Perhaps not the ideal scale, but it works. I did play with how to rescale it and came up with 1780'/542m as the best alternate. The windows fit very well at that scale. Any larger and the window placement doesn't match the TMP Refit (unless you are rescaling that as well). But since you asked, here is an image of the 1531'/467m deck layout with the scaled TMP refit and with the refit scaled to 1780'/542m as well.