Gary Kerr's Enterprise....

[Warped9]

Okay, some more specific answers.

The main saucer is out of round, but only by a small fraction of an inch. and because it had to be built that way. It did not become warped over time. Such a small deviation would hardly show up onscreen.

Gary measured only one of the nacelles but I believe it was Shaw who mentioned one was a bit shorter than the other.

The upper gridlines were drawn on very neatly & regularly, but the circular ones were definitely not very concentric. The radial lines weren't perfectly spaced, either.

The engraved grids were awful - irregular in shape & size.

 

[Maurice]

There is a distinction between a set, a costume and a prop. So how would a miniature be classified? You can have small miniatures and great honking big ones. The 11 footer Enterprise, the 8 footer TMP refit, some of the ship miniatures for 2001 and other SF films as well as things like the Titanic for Titanic were big replicas. How are they classified and who is responsible for them?

Props appear on sets with and are handled by actors, they are generally items which can be moved (as opposed to set dressing), whereas the Enterprise was a miniature designed for visual effects work. Bill George doesn't call the Excelsior model a "prop", trust me.

A miniature is a replica of something in a much smaller size. The 50+ foot Discovery model was a miniature, even though it was huge, because it represented something far larger. At Weta they refer to very large models as "bigiatures".

Film sets have very specific lingo. Even what you would call a wooden clothespin is known as a C47 in Hollywood.