Pros and cons of Franz Joseph's plans

[Shawnster]

I ruined (lost, tore, got wet, can't remember) my uncle's blueprints that came in the nice vinyl pouch. I was around 6 or 7 at the time though.

The rotated bridge always boggled my mind but I accepted it as canon because I didn't know any better. LOL.

I do wonder how much access to information FJ had. I mean, he couldn't go back and watch tapes of the show or anything. If he didn't have much access to MJ's work then a lot of this may have been from memory and his own imagination. It's obvious he did fill in some logical blanks like bathrooms, a stairway from the bridge, etc... The blueprints made the ship believable.

Despite or inspite of all of this I accept FJ's designs as legitimate, canon and filling in all the gaps in TOS. He's got, scouts, destroyers, dreadnaugts, tugs, starbases, etc... Worked for me.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Forbin, do you accept quatloos?

 

[Praetor]

So one of us should propably just take and whittle down and rearange FJ's plans to fit within the casimiro drawings, accurise, and see where we are

Capital Idea Praeter, I was hopeing someone would volunteer. I have some ideas for such a project, but my drafting skills are mediocre at best and my computer art skills are non-existant. However, a good place to get some ideas on what would be required in the project is "Dave's Holodeck", He has an article w/ a deck-by-deck internal/external comparison, I don't agree w/ everything he says , but its a good place to get started?

*sigh*

Well, I do happen to have scans of the FJ plans saved on my computer. I forget where I got them (Cygnus?), but since I actually own a physical copy (thanks eBay!) I guess I'll forgive myself the guilt. Perhaps I'll do an overlay of the Casmiro plans (which I also have) and see where that gets us first.

 

[TIN_MAN]

"Otten's forgotten trek" has the FJ plans too. And if I'm not mistaken, I think CRA once posted overlays of Casimiro and FJ's in one of his threads here? Look forward to seeing what ya get!

 

[Praetor]

Well here's my effort. I stretched and cut the FJ plans to generally fit the shape of the Casmiro drawings, since they're pretty definitive. I completely rejected FJ's nacelle. (Photoshop Elements, which is all I have on this laptop, is like ass-backwards real Photoshop!)

Larger version here. Thoughts?

I actually think it still fits pretty well, with adjustment of the contours to the 'correct' shape. I didn't quite skew the neck to fit properly, but its close. I think a next step would be to single out where hardware should go. I would say it would next be an exercise of comparing and lining up the decks. I also think it would be best advised to tweak the shuttlebay and make it the forced-perspective style plan, to fit the space better and fit more with Jefferies' notions.

 

[Forbin]

Forbin, do you accept quatloos?

Woolongs only, my friend.

 

[ancient]

RE: Praetor

Yikes. That really drives home how...um...'alternate' the FJ Enterprise is.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Yeah,looks great so far! Things just need to be shifted a little, Deck 24 might need to go altogether? As for the hanger deck, FJ had the whole thing moved forward, deeper into the hull for some reason, possibly so that the turntable/elevator would clear the fantail when lowered? the actual length of the hanger doesn't necesarily present a problem if we can just push it back a few meters so that the two little control cabs and clamshell doors line up with where they should be, but already we're talking significant departure from FJ's design, so maybe we should finish morphing things before we decide on anything more radical. I have some crazy ideas along these lines, but I'll wait until the apropriate time before I make a fool of myself.

 

[Praetor]

RE: Praetor

Yikes. That really drives home how...um...'alternate' the FJ Enterprise is.

Doesn't it though?

At this point (since I was already working on revising a cross section of my own and might be able to do two things at once) I think I might take that image into Illustrator and do some outlines and deck lines so I won't be violating any copyrights or anything. Then we can fill in the appropriate FJ components.

 

[Vance]

*gives Ancient a slide-rule, a compass, some mechanical pencils, two drafting stencils, and some 8mm films of the three different Enterprise models used in the original series*

Okay, buddy, get to work. Remember, only the tools listed, and no other references. Let me know how it goes.

 

[Praetor]

A very good point, Vance. Do we know how much FJ actually got to reference the models? And if he didn't, why not? Was he not allowed access, or was it just unnecessary?

 

[Vance]

A very good point, Vance. Do we know how much FJ actually got to reference the models? And if he didn't, why not? Was he not allowed access, or was it just unnecessary?

From Karen, he got a LOT of access, and that's actually part of the problem. The three models of the Enterprise are all notably different in many respects, so which was he to use? We saw a lot of the 11 footer, but most of those shots were grainy pics from "The Cage" and "Where no Man"... oddly enough. So, he had choices to make. The official numbers were available, and he used them, he compromised here and there (which is why his secondary hull is more rotund than the 11 footer, since it's based more on the 4 footer and mini) and Gene Roddenberry himself signed off on these decisions.

This is to say nothing about what we can do with video-capture and refinement on a computer, tools which simply were not available to him 'back in the day'. We can, for instance, take a screen shot of a digitally enhanced DVD from "Amok Time" and actually MEASURE the ship based on that, and perfect-match the color of the screen tones.

I mean, even WITH all these tools, I'm constantly refining my own work, and find myself often looking back to how FJ did things.. 'cause, let's face it, every last one of us doing these things owes him a huge debt, and his influence is in ALL of this stuff.

... and I wonder what he could have, or would have, done if he had the tools then that we have today ...

 

[Captain Robert April]

When I get a chance, I'll work up some new comparisons of FJ's ship with Sinclair's, Casimiro's, Jefferies' TMoST drawings, and the AMT 18" model. I probably still have stuff along these lines on photobucket already, but I'm pretty sure I can do better than anything I've already posted.

 

[ancient]

*gives Ancient a slide-rule, a compass, some mechanical pencils, two drafting stencils, and some 8mm films of the three different Enterprise models used in the original series*

Okay, buddy, get to work. Remember, only the tools listed, and no other references. Let me know how it goes.

I think I already mentioned the difficulty FJ had.

Ok, replace the model ref with one 3-inch magazine side view and I actually did that. Though I had to make my own 'slide rule' using a marked up strip of paper and a calculator to run two sets of calculations through. (3-inch drawing to feet---feet to new scale) I did this way back when. I think I was around 16 or so at the time. The thing ended up being around 1150 feet long, because I had no idea what size the ship was and just guessed based on the saucer being 2 decks. This was before I was into fandom, I totally missed the undercut in the saucer. Since then I've made several deck blueprints, so I'm not riffing on FJ, I know the difficulty level.

 

[Vance]

It's just that a lot of people do, or at least give that impression, and it gets pretty frustrating. (And it's one reason that I actually dislike Okuda so much). We're very spoiled today... it's hard for me to even imagine what all that work must have been like for the technical manual. I get impatient with myself when I don't like the layout of a PDF file I've made.

 

[Praetor]

A very good point, Vance. Do we know how much FJ actually got to reference the models? And if he didn't, why not? Was he not allowed access, or was it just unnecessary?

From Karen, he got a LOT of access, and that's actually part of the problem. The three models of the Enterprise are all notably different in many respects, so which was he to use? We saw a lot of the 11 footer, but most of those shots were grainy pics from "The Cage" and "Where no Man"... oddly enough. So, he had choices to make. The official numbers were available, and he used them, he compromised here and there (which is why his secondary hull is more rotund than the 11 footer, since it's based more on the 4 footer and mini) and Gene Roddenberry himself signed off on these decisions.

This is to say nothing about what we can do with video-capture and refinement on a computer, tools which simply were not available to him 'back in the day'. We can, for instance, take a screen shot of a digitally enhanced DVD from "Amok Time" and actually MEASURE the ship based on that, and perfect-match the color of the screen tones.

I mean, even WITH all these tools, I'm constantly refining my own work, and find myself often looking back to how FJ did things.. 'cause, let's face it, every last one of us doing these things owes him a huge debt, and his influence is in ALL of this stuff.

... and I wonder what he could have, or would have, done if he had the tools then that we have today ...

Thanks for that, I really didn't know. I don't meant to diminish the man's work in any way. I think he did a fantastic job, and always have. There are just those few things about the blueprints that, when taken with our modern treknical perspective, I would change. But the blueprints truly are an amazing accomplishment, no matter what tools you have at hand.

And CRA, your efforts would be most helpful since you've already done most of these comparisons. Thank ya, sir!

 

[TIN_MAN]

FJ was defininatly going for a comprimise between all the varients that were seen. Even so, when everything is properly scaled, I think his plans will fit inside the 11 footer without too much ado? The biggest problem I see looming on the horizon is decks 8-11, since FJ seems to have comprimised the most here between the 11 footer and 3 footer. the preferred solution, probably for most, would be to try to shrink the diameter of FJ's decks to fit in MJ's original, but we could also (GASP!) consider modifying Jeffries design and capitulate to FJ in this regard? This could still give us an end product that might be 80 to 90 percent "accurate"? I would suggest exploring any and all options before deciding on a final course of action. And by all means, if anyone out there has any ideas or suggestions please feel free to jump in! The more the merrier.

 

[Praetor]

the preferred solution, probably for most, would be to try to shrink the diameter of FJ's decks to fit in MJ's original, but we could also (GASP!) consider modifying Jeffries design and capitulate to FJ in this regard?

Noooo!!! Heretic!!!

Seriously, I'd say we try to keep the 'real' 11 footer dimensions as far as possible.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Agreed. This is rapidly becoming your thread now anyway, which is cool, so run with it. I'll just hang back and make occasional irksom comments like I do elsewhere.

 

[Praetor]

Oh no no no no no, I demand constant input and don't want to hijack. (And refuse to accept ownership of this runaway train. )

Here's something else to mull over: an overlay of the TMoST diagram, with the Franz Joseph blueprints (and Mandel engine layout) laid out to the Casmiro profile, a bit better than the last. I think an amalgam of these three would be the 'perfect' layout.



Thoughts?