Once again, she's looking beautiful.
Thanks!
Hey Shaw, did you ever follow up with Price to find out if he had any information that you have't been privy to?
Yes, and he still has a lot of stuff from back then (including the original molds for the model... as well as the altered ones for the Planet Hollywood TMP models).
The more I examined what I had from Jefferies and where the studio model was going, the more I realized that I needed to treat these as two different projects.
While Price/Loos had far more access to Jefferies than anyone else working on Phase II, that still wasn't a lot of access. Jefferies tried to get as much information down on the page as possible, but in doing so he made it hard to make out some elements.
For example, the studio model plans show the phaser assembly coming out of the base of the dorsal pylon with thin wedge shapes supporting it top and bottom. The way Jefferies had drawn this on the page it is hard to see (I didn't even notice it until I was actually building the model), and Price/Loos saw it as a bend in the leading edge of the dorsal (which looks a bit like Jefferies' earlier drawings).
Similarly, the nacelle support pylons of the studio model had cross sections that looked more like the TMP Enterprise, but Jefferies had designed it to have a wing like cross section (which is how I built mine on this study model).
So without Jefferies right there to answer questions, Price/Loos had to do their best... which was great. The model was looking awesome for where they had gotten to. But there are differences and I'd love to take four or five days to visit Price to interview him on the designing/building of that Enterprise, look over what he still has (drawings, decals and molds of the model) and then document how the studio model was going to turn out (basically going forward from where they left off). Price has been kind enough to give me tons of background info on that period of Trek production during phone conversations, but I'd still like to get the chance to sit down with him in person if possible.
Sadly, this is a really expensive hobby... and to do what I'd like to do would really require finding some way to off set the cost. But if I can find a way to pay for it, I'll try to make it happen.
