Looking at Matt Jeffrey's original drawings it shows only 1.5 decks on the rim. Yet there are two rows of windows...
It would be helpful to know which drawing you are talking about... Jefferies drew quite a few of them.
As for the
rows of windows... these were cut into the model after it was originally built to add lighting and increase detail. The holes for the windows on the rim were limited to four spots (three corners and the bow). Those windows don't make sense as deck indicators As they are in the wrong places for any configuration.
How do I deal with it? Well in this sketch (again, none of this is new, there is a complete thread with all of this and much, much more
here) I address the odd placement by putting a commons area there that is the full height of the rim where people on the upper balcony and the lower deck share the view out those windows.
Deck 5 of that compartment is depicted as having 18 cabins and 8 bathrooms, deck 6 wasn't drawn, but would have had an additional 10 cabins and four bathrooms, community restroom and equipment/storage for most of the people living in that compartment (estimated 56 people).
Unless you thought I was pulling those window placements out of thin air (or you aren't taking the time to review that thread first), why ask about them?
Aren't the saucer rims of the TOS and TMP enterprise around the same thickness?
No.
But since you brought up the outer rim of the TMP Enterprise (and I'm sure you are familiar with hull compartments of the TOS Enterprise), the outer ring of compartments were most likely replaced in full on the TMP Enterprise... meaning that they are not the original structure, which is why the saucer has a wider diameter and the rim edge is different in almost every way from the original.
Out of curiousity how high is the ceiling in the room depicted in (Post #57 this thread) the picture where Captain Kirk is with a blonde-haired woman looking out the window?
The first of the two images is in the gallery over looking the hangar deck (deck 16a, that was first sketched out
here and later in greater detail
here), the second image would appear to be on deck 2... both are about 10 feet (give or take a little), and neither represent rim windows.
Cary L. Brown said:
This is another thing that the 1080' length helps out with, by the way...
Which is fine for re-imagining how it was done. My project was to see if the Enterprise as envisioned by Jefferies worked.
This, to me, is the only way that the "undercut" makes any engineering sense.
... Today.
One should always take any of this with the understanding that we are hundreds of years in the past. You see no reason from an early 21st century perspective, but to someone of (Trek's) 23rd century it might seem to have a simple reason.
I would point out that in Jefferies drawings he often had a defined line (edge) where that lower section was added... it only appears as a smooth curve on the model.
And we shouldn't forget that it was
your request that moved me from doing my plans off of the Jefferies construction plans to the 11 foot model. Or don't you recall this...
Hmmm... the only dubious decision you've made (IMHO). As far as I'm concerned, the "real" ship is the one seen on-screen. Anything else might represent a different ship, but it cannot be "The Enterprise" in my mind.
Then again, I'm old and crotchety and set in my ways!
Well, there is more than enough on-screen stuff to support the 947' length... so maybe you aren't as
set in your ways as you thought you were.
