I'm building the entire Starship Enterprise interior at 1:25 scale
- Thread starter Mike Nevitt
- Start date
This is such an enormous undertaking, I'd be concerned about how much space it's going to occupy. Since the ship is largely symmetrical inside, maybe you should divide it along the center line and build "just" one side, topped by the entire bridge. That would still be a huge model, and it would include essentially everything.
Also, if you plan to display the model assembled, I imagine you'll need some pillars to support the weight of the saucer section.
Some discussion there about the engineering of the thing:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/wow-1-25-scale-tos-enterprise….313429/
Mike…are you doing much in the way of an exterior? I think you might have this thing self supporting…put you would have to sacrifice some internals.
A V-8 engine block might just fit that secondary hull with the V piston cylinders holding nacelle pylon support tubes…the V matching their angle.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/wow-1-25-scale-tos-enterprise….313429/
Mike…are you doing much in the way of an exterior? I think you might have this thing self supporting…put you would have to sacrifice some internals.
A V-8 engine block might just fit that secondary hull with the V piston cylinders holding nacelle pylon support tubes…the V matching their angle.
This is utterly insane.
Carry on.
Carry on.
I’ve dreamed of doing something like this since I was a small boy and Star Trek started in reruns on Channel 6 in 1970.
Since me and the missus now live in a condo that literally is not long enough to house this miniature when it’s fully built (and since I usually manage to stab myself in the leg with my X-Acto knife when I try to build a physical model), I am content to sit back and avidly watch this project!
ETA: Mike, will you be lighting your miniature?
Since me and the missus now live in a condo that literally is not long enough to house this miniature when it’s fully built (and since I usually manage to stab myself in the leg with my X-Acto knife when I try to build a physical model), I am content to sit back and avidly watch this project!
ETA: Mike, will you be lighting your miniature?
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You just had to go there.
Ambitious. And while I do love "practical" (physical) models, this one details all the reasons I went in for computer modeling when I discovered it back in the '90s. Physical models take up so much space, need to be dusted, and haunt you with the various limitations of whatever you made them from. In this case, it almost breaks my heart to see the amount of effort being put into something so cool that is also so fragile—and not fragile like a Faberge egg. Fragile in the sense that a sunny window could fade colors, dry and warp the materials.
I'm not naysaying! Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning. This is cool.
But even the portion of the model seen in the video above made me think. The ship is more than just walled off spaces. Some sci-fi writers have stepped out of their own time to wonder what future engineering might look like. How much space is needed for ducting, or is there some engineering ahead of our own time that obviates the need for such bulky construction? Simple lighting has changed immensely since the time the TV show was made.
I loved the look of the Moonbase Alpha interiors in Space: 1999. They were brilliant from a production standpoint as well as "in universe." There were maybe a dozen types of wall modules. Each week the producers could show you a new section of Alpha without building all new sets just by snapping the modules together. The space was new, yet "looked like Moonbase Alpha."
James P. Hogan put it into words when he described a space station in The Two Faces of Tomorrow. Extruded on-site, wall modules also included built-in plumbing for gases and fluids, wiring for power and data, and control microprocessors. "Snap together" a new space in jig time, and it is ready with only a little software configuration. That's the "in-universe" part, and it dovetails with what Alpha looked like.
Of course, stuff like that is hard to explore with a physical model, cardboard or otherwise. Even CAD engineers use "collision avoidance" software to avoid pipes or support structures that would be in each others' space... like Airwolf's landing gear, turbos and "chain guns" all in the same space!
I'm not naysaying! Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning. This is cool.
But even the portion of the model seen in the video above made me think. The ship is more than just walled off spaces. Some sci-fi writers have stepped out of their own time to wonder what future engineering might look like. How much space is needed for ducting, or is there some engineering ahead of our own time that obviates the need for such bulky construction? Simple lighting has changed immensely since the time the TV show was made.
I loved the look of the Moonbase Alpha interiors in Space: 1999. They were brilliant from a production standpoint as well as "in universe." There were maybe a dozen types of wall modules. Each week the producers could show you a new section of Alpha without building all new sets just by snapping the modules together. The space was new, yet "looked like Moonbase Alpha."
James P. Hogan put it into words when he described a space station in The Two Faces of Tomorrow. Extruded on-site, wall modules also included built-in plumbing for gases and fluids, wiring for power and data, and control microprocessors. "Snap together" a new space in jig time, and it is ready with only a little software configuration. That's the "in-universe" part, and it dovetails with what Alpha looked like.
Of course, stuff like that is hard to explore with a physical model, cardboard or otherwise. Even CAD engineers use "collision avoidance" software to avoid pipes or support structures that would be in each others' space... like Airwolf's landing gear, turbos and "chain guns" all in the same space!
I love physical models, but my modelling skills are questionable. Physical modelling can also be unforgiving—making a mistake isn’t always easy to fix.
I enjoy 3D modelling for the freedom to explore anything, and if you make a mistake you can often literally erase it away and start over with a clean sheet.
I enjoy 3D modelling for the freedom to explore anything, and if you make a mistake you can often literally erase it away and start over with a clean sheet.
This is fabulous. I want to know whether there will be two engine rooms! 
So will the turbolift be directly behind the Captain's chair or at a 30 degree angle...?
If he is following FJ’s plans then the bridge will be offset.
No need to be heartbroken. The models you are seeing in the videos are all test models for the final build. The final build will be supported on a metal and wood frame and only the interior details will be made from high quality modeling board. You say that the ship is more than just walled off spaces and I have to point out that you are looking at the entire project in its very early stages, you also say you love the interior of Moonbase Alpha which to me looks like 'walled off' spaces more than anything and clearly modules to make filming easier and more cost effective. My Enterprise model will be so much more than walled off spaces, it will contain inner workings that we never saw on the show (like how the water supplies are distributed around the ship and just where are those dilithium crystals stored!)
Finally your point about preferring computer models over physical models. I get your point, but building the entire ship in this scale as a physical build is also part of the entire point of the mission. You just can't get the same 'feel' from a computer model as you can to walk right up to a real model in real life and gape in awe as you realise the true size of this vessel right before your very eyes. To physically walk under it and around it as opposed to just looking at it on your computer screen. AND, ultimately, physical models have a feel and soul that no computer generated image could ever match. It's like a kid playing with a real dolls house or a sketch up dolls house. Just not the same! And like the Enterprise itself, my model is gonna be one tough son-of-a bitch :-)
Physical models have a certain kind of presence in your imagination a cgi model cannot really convey.
I recall, decades ago, going to a Titanic exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Two particular exhibits really caught my imagination. The first was an illustration using the CN Tower to show just how deep the Titanic lay under the ocean—it was crazy! The second was a massive, easily 8-10 ft. if not more, model of the Titanic herself. Granted there have been since and are bigger ships today, but it gave the ship a reality not even seeing it on film can convey.
I also remember walking in downtown Toronto and using tall buildings to count floors as decks to try envisioning just how big a real starship Enterprise would be. It was mind-boggling.
I recall, decades ago, going to a Titanic exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Two particular exhibits really caught my imagination. The first was an illustration using the CN Tower to show just how deep the Titanic lay under the ocean—it was crazy! The second was a massive, easily 8-10 ft. if not more, model of the Titanic herself. Granted there have been since and are bigger ships today, but it gave the ship a reality not even seeing it on film can convey.
I also remember walking in downtown Toronto and using tall buildings to count floors as decks to try envisioning just how big a real starship Enterprise would be. It was mind-boggling.
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Now that I know of this project, I will watch it eagerly. But perhaps you are missing my point.
I mentioned modern lighting, versus what was available at the time the show was made. LED panels are much, much thinner than even fluoro boxes, and put out the tiniest fraction of heat compared to incandescent lamps. Today "heat pumps" for both heating and cooling are popular. (I've also heard them referred to as "ductless" cooling.) They use a couple of thin tubes connected to a condenser elsewhere. A space larger than a residence will need some kind of ducting to circulate air.
But suppose the Enterprise uses something more subtle. Suppose a system had been developed by the time of TOS where small equipment in each room can "precipitate" out waste gases and return fresh air? It needn't be anything as sophisticated as the transporter. But such a technology would make the "narrow" floors of the model seen in the video seem more credible. The same goes for the outer hull. Aside from shielding against the extremes of space, that hull must include phasers, sensors, whatever. It's not just a roof.
I know, various episodes showed actual ducting, like gassing Khan, or the space vampire in "Obsession."
As for Moonbase Alpha, those walls were quite thick. We don't know what was in them, except for the modules containing lights, or pocket doors. I simply liked Hogan's idea that utilities were pre-built into the wall modules so that new construction does not have to be customized, one room at a time. The filmmakers often used the indirect lighting of the walls to set mood by using different colors. But one might easily imagine that those colors are part of the controlled environment, they might even emit UV from time to time. Suppose those "light" panels are also the heating?
"Gee, those walls or ceilings look awfully thin. Maybe they don't need to be as thick as our construction." That's the sort of thing that comes to mind when I see such models or sets.
That's epic with the Titanic experience, I can really feel and picture what you experienced, especially with the depiction of how deep it was sunk! AND, I do exactly the same thing with buildings to envisage how massive a real Enterprise would be. There is a long apartment complex that is 9 floors high near where I live. I've worked out that this is approx the height of the secondary hull and about as long. It's MASSIVE! Then I imagine the dorsal and all its levels leading from that at the front to the enormous saucer section. Just incredibly massive! So glad someone else does that and sees the same thing. The 1:350 models and computer models just don't deliver that scale and awe!
The most amazing thing about the design of the Enterprise isn't her size but the arrangement as no modern materials could easily support that configuration under any kind of gravity or even acceleration. After touring large warships like the USS Lexington and USS Texas you'll see that a 947' Enterprise is large but it isn't that large when compared to buildings (my old office building was a 9 story and 650' long and 70' wide), IMHO.
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