New member with a few questions

[XanderL]

Hi, I am a new member (just got my account today) and I have a few questions related to a project I am doing. both questions ultimately have the same goal (getting some measurements of the tos enterprise/33-inch filming model, I have almost all the measurements I need except for the placement of the support pylons in regards to how far from the front of the engineering hull they are, and the exact placement of the neck on both the saucer and the engineering hull, I know the angles that they are at, just not how far from the front of the engineering hull does the neck meet it )

question 1: Does anyone know of the best way to reach Shaw/ if they are still active and open to answering questions?

question 2: anyone has the 1/350 polar lights TOS enterprise model and is willing to take some measurements for me.

sorry if this is the wrong place to ask questions, again I am new, let me know if there is a better place to post this and I will.

sorry in advance for the long and straight to the point post

 

[Maurice]

^^^@Shaw @Shaw @Shaw

 

[Finn]

 

[XanderL]

thanks for the reply

 

[Shaw]

I'd be happy to answer questions. I don't have access to everything right now, but I could answer some of the stuff you asked later today or tomorrow.

If you are planning a conversion of the 1/350 kit, you'll need to multiply the 33 inch model's measurements by about .96 to get everything to scale nicely.

^^^@Shaw @Shaw @Shaw

Yeah... that works.

 

[XanderL]

alright, I made an image with the measurements I need and labeled them for easy reference, here is the image. the model that I want the measurements to come from doesn't matter, but I would prefer that the 33 inch replica be measured, although, again, if that's not possible, the 1/350 scale model would do, just please specify which model you are measuring.

here is a list of all the measurements:
A.) distance from tip of nacelle to start of support
B.) distance from tip of engineering hull (w/o deflector dish) to start of nacelle support
C.) distance from tip of engineering hull (w/o deflector dish) to the back of the "neck" support (thing between saucer and engineering hull)
D.) distance from tip of engineering hull (w/o deflector dish) to where the curve starts (the bottom of the hull looks like it has a 1/4 part of a circle cut out of it
E.) diameter of circle where the saurcer stops curving downward (stops getting thicker)
F.) distance from very bottom of saucer to the thin part of the underside of the saucer
G.) distance from tip of saucer to the first "bump" on the top of it (the part that is sandwiched between the main saucer and the top dome)
H.) height of the engineering hull at the back
I.) distance from the back tip of the saucer to the first "bump" on the top of it (the part that is sandwiched between the main saucer and the top dome)
J.) distance from tip of engineering hull (w/o deflector dish) to the start of the "neck" support (thing between saucer and engineering hull)


As for why I need these measurements, I am building a 1:1 scale model of the tos enterprise in Minecraft. I am usingmeasurments from the original construction plans of the 33 inch model whenever possible. There is a bit of a sense of irony in the timing of your reply because I had just given up on you replying (I thought that you wouldn't respond to a new member with no reputation), so I purchased the 1/350 polar lights enterprise kit so I could build it and measure it myself. Still going to build and paint it when I am on winter break. I will post pictures of both the Minecraft build and the model build if people want them.

ps: Anyone have any recommendations for paint colors I need and what glue I should use?

Thanks again for your help and response

 

[XanderL]

 

[Shaw]

Sorry for the delay, I'm not online very often.

I had to scratch down the list from someone else's computer, so I hope I got everything.

Click to enlarge​

The measurements in parentheses are what you'd get off this drawing (which I need to update at some point), the rest are from my replica. I don't have the masters and molds anymore, so I did the best I could with a tape measure next to the model.

 

[XanderL]

which replica are you referring to? And thank you. By the way, do you mean the masters like the actual model or just the masters that you used to make the molds?
sorry for asking so many questions, just curious.

 

[Shaw]

Those are fair questions, and I shouldn't have just assumed you would know off hand. And I'd rather use my net time on this (as the world seems really depressing).

Short background... ever since I was little I wanted a model of the Enterprise. But not just any model, I wanted the Enterprise model sitting on the table in the episode Requiem for Methuselah. I built tons of models from the 70's to the 90's, but no matter how good they were, they were never that model. And the problem was that I was always working from reference images of the 11 foot model, which was different in a number of contours from the 33 inch model.

In 2007 I realized that I might have enough info to reverse engineer the 33 inch model, which had been missing since the late 70's (I have a history of the model here).

Over the next 12 years I worked towards building the first (and only) studio scale replica of the original Enterprise (aiming to replicate the original model as it was around December of 1968... when it was filmed for Requiem for Methuselah).

So when I am talking about my replica, this is what I mean (none of these images are of the original 33 inch studio model)...

Click images to enlarge






​

And yes, one of the best tests to see if my replica was a good replica was to see if I could drop in images of my model in place of the original in old photos of the original. The original model was solid wood (so no masters/molds), mine isn't wood so I sculpted masters and made molds (which I no longer have) to construct the parts... so that was what I was talking about.

On the off chance that you were really wanting to build a replica based on Jefferies' original plans, I reverse engineered those at the same time I was working on my 33 inch replica...

Click to enlarge (1.7 MB)​

Click to enlarge (1.8 MB)​

The first one is the early (smaller) Enterprise design from October 1964, the second is the final (larger) design from November 1964 (though elements from both were used in the construction of both studio models). Both drawings should match Jefferies' original plans at 150 dpi.

I also have a demo site (someday I'll make it a real standalone site) where I've put a lot of my research if you want to browse it (you can find it here).

 

[XanderL]

Thanks for the reply. I have read everything on your site which I found through some star trek wiki, all of the work you have done is really impressive, I knew that you built two 2/3 scale models before you made your 33inch replica, so I just wanted to make sure that it was the 33-inch model. As for what you felt like as a child, I feel the same way. I purchased the 1/1000 tos enterprise snap model kit from polar lights which I intended to use for the rest of the measurements but, when I measured it, the scaling was all over the place (if I remember correctly, the overall length has a scale of 1:991.7836, and the saucer diameter was something like 1:1036.8647). I know that for a normal person, the differences in scaling would be okay, but for me, I wanted to have more accurate measurements, after all, in Minecraft, 1 block equals 1 meter, so any difference in scaling would lead to drastic differences in size. And due to my stubbornness, I needed everything to be exact, after all, if I claim to have built a 1:1 scale TOS enterprise in Minecraft, the last thing I would want would be for someone to say that something was off. I have more measurements I need, but I will get those measurements when I build the 1:350 model over my thanksgiving break.
I think my obsession with the perfection of the measurements comes from the loss of my sanity as I scoured the internet for the measurements, which lead me down the rabbit hole of the different models and plans. I still cannot believe that the original is lost, I would love to track it down, I know you stopped, but I at least want to try. Thanks again for the measurements and for sharing your story with me.

 

[XanderL]

after some consideration, I have decided to make a new thread that is dedicated to my project, this thread has served its purpose of getting the attention of shaw and getting those initial questions answered. in the new thread, I will post updates/ questions/ any info I find. thanks for all of your help