The only way I could justify saying that she's hard to spot is that she's on the Independence Avenue side of the main lobby, but most people enter from the Mall and then disperse right or left.
The 11 foot model and the panel lines
- Thread starter ChallengerHK
- Start date
She’s not hard to spot.
The shades are in use for sunlight protection and are a good thing as we don’t need more damage accruing. Besides we all collaborated on the shades and they are pretty cool. “Shields Up!” Was my contribution.
The light show is spectacular and usually offered 3x per day.
The actual case is climate controlled and very expensive - you’d be surprised.
The shades are in use for sunlight protection and are a good thing as we don’t need more damage accruing. Besides we all collaborated on the shades and they are pretty cool. “Shields Up!” Was my contribution.
The light show is spectacular and usually offered 3x per day.
The actual case is climate controlled and very expensive - you’d be surprised.
Here’s what Smithsonian has to say.
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/shields-protecting-enterprise-uv-rays
The final plans for the shades incorporated contributions and talent from across the Star Trek universe: concept designer and illustrator Andrew Probert’s ideas, using production consultant Gary Kerr’s graphics, with text edits by memorabilia collector Adam Schneider (in the font recommended by artist Doug Drexler and supplied by graphic designers Michael and Denise Okuda), applied according to the guidelines provided by John Van Citters, vice president for product development at CBS Consumer Products. In front is the magnificent artifact, conserved by Engen Conservation Chair Malcolm Collum and the Museum’s staff, with detail painting by special effects artists Bill George, Kim Smith, and John Goodson, using Star Trek illustrator Rick Sternbach’s paint masks and decals. The whole crew had a hand in this!
... and you thought it was simple.
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/shields-protecting-enterprise-uv-rays
The final plans for the shades incorporated contributions and talent from across the Star Trek universe: concept designer and illustrator Andrew Probert’s ideas, using production consultant Gary Kerr’s graphics, with text edits by memorabilia collector Adam Schneider (in the font recommended by artist Doug Drexler and supplied by graphic designers Michael and Denise Okuda), applied according to the guidelines provided by John Van Citters, vice president for product development at CBS Consumer Products. In front is the magnificent artifact, conserved by Engen Conservation Chair Malcolm Collum and the Museum’s staff, with detail painting by special effects artists Bill George, Kim Smith, and John Goodson, using Star Trek illustrator Rick Sternbach’s paint masks and decals. The whole crew had a hand in this!
... and you thought it was simple.
I can't imagine anything about this project was simple. Makes the end result that much more compelling.
Okay, since I've been studying this for quite some time, I'll fill in the details. I've conversed with several people about the model and studied many photos. I'll go through the general stages.
Fresh out of the shop: The Enterprise had painted windows and markings, but did not have many other details. It was painted in Gray and Metallic Blue-Gray
The Cage: Before going in front of the camera for the one shot from The Cage, the top of the saucer was detailed. Some weathering was applied and some rectangular markings were added to the port and starboard (on the top toward the edge) and to the bridge. These are clearly seen in each use of the shot, primarily in The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before. The aft end of the Nacelles was blank. The markings on the secondary hull (text on the sides and the shapes on the bottom) were added.
Where No Man Has Gone Before: The markings on top of the saucer were changed and lights were added. There was a light in the front of the bridge which was later removed, and not all the windows were the same as the later series modifications. All the stock footage for the entire series where we see the Nacelle spikes, raised bridge, and larger deflector dish come from here. The aft end of the nacelles and the impulse engines were detailed with dots. The nacelles in a grid pattern and the impulse engines with several pairs (over the original twin rectangles).
Season 1: The bridge was cut down, the deflector dish cut down, the spikes were removed from the nacelles and a new clear dome and lighting feature were added. The original domes were part of the wooden structure and had to cut of to add the new frosted domes. The original configuration was clear frosted domes. The entire model appears to have been painted with a new color that was slightly green. All the major markings were replaced and the font was altered slightly (The 1, 7, R and N are noticeably different), though the numbers along the secondary hull remained in the pilot font. The various parts were detailed in a variety of colors. More windows were added and some were pained over. The saucer was marked with grid lines top, bottom and edges. These were thin pencil lines and some had added weathering that enhanced them, mostly along the forward edge. The neck was repainted in two colors creating a line just back from the front edge. This and the seam between the wood and metal on the nacelles (just aft of the pylon) are the only lines anywhere on the model besides the saucer. I've seen some hints of an additional line on the nacelles at about the middle, but no one involved in the latest restoration found any evidence. The aft and of the nacelles got the balls (a ball cut in half to match the curve and attached in the middle of the aft cowling) and the impulse engines were restored to the original and a mesh was added to each side. Several changes were made to the engine details.
Season 2: It is unclear quite when the later changes happened, but by the production of The Trouble With Tribbles, the model was in its final configuration. There were some changes to the lights and the Nacelle domes went from clear to orange. No known changes happened after that point and the model had seen most of its use by that point. One of the last changes was to detail (with paint instead of altering the model physically) the trench on the inside of the starboard nacelle.
Season 3: No change
1972 college appearance: Sensor dish missing but otherwise intact.
1974 NASM arrival: Dish still missing, both nacelle domes and the inner moving structure have gone missing as have some of the clear panels and the rectangular plates under the front of the Nacelles. The wiring is intact and loose and the control box had been included.
1974 NASM refresh: The model is cleaned with an light abrasive (like Comet or Ajax) which removed all the weathering and most of the grid lines from all but the top of the saucer which they were asked to leave untouched. The paint and markings were touched up and the missing parts replaced with rough approximations. I am unclear if the lighting was working at this time, but the wiring was duct taped to the side. It is rigged to hang from the ceiling from 3 large metal eyes screwed into the wooden areas. Registry on the port nacelle was replaced. The control box for the lighting was lost.
1984 NASM refresh: The model was given a light repaint (just enough to give it a fresh finish, but enough to cover some of the areas originally painted different such as the gray under the front of the Nacelles and the turqoise along the front of the neck. All the original markings seem to have been left untouched and in a few placed the grid lines on the bottom were still visible. The lights were fully working and the wiring is covered with hull colored material. One of the details on the bottom of the secondary hull was painted the wrong color. The wiring was replaced.
1991 Ed Miarecki restoration: The model was in bad shape. The staves that comprise the secondary hull were splitting. The model was completely dissembled, repaired, sanded, repainted and more authentic replacement parts were made to replaced the 1974 parts. The process was extensively photographed and Gary Kerr participated, taking measurements of the model that were later used by Greg Jein to construct a 1/2 scale new studio model for DS9. Except for the top of the saucer, the entire model was repained and redetailed. The original pilot font markings were replaced with series font markiings. The grid lines were restored on the saucer, but during the weathering process, they were made too dark compared to the original. New lines were added to the secondary hull where there is no evidence of any before. The seam on the naclles was weathered and two additional lines were added and weathered (as I mentioned above, I think one of those might be accurate, but definitely not to the extent the weathering was applied). The grille on the inside of the port nacelle (the right doesn't have one) was replaced with a different pattern. Overall the excellent restoration was marred by the overdone weathering and the small changes from the original. A couple of physical changes were made in the way of cutting groves into the pylons and a few other things to hide the wiring.
2016 NASM full in house restoration: This was the first time the curators at NASM had supervised the work. They brought all their historical research expertise to bear and the call for photos from before the first alteration yielded a lot of information. There were many B&W photos from the series production as well as three vital color photos (on Kodachrome slide film) from the 1972 college excursion. This plus the research on the model itself (where they were able to find traces of the original paint and match the colors) yielded a wealth of information and gave them what they needed to accurately restore the model to its classic appearance. The parts missing from its initial arrival at the NASM were recreated accurately. The paint was matched and the entire model (again except for the top of the saucer) was repainted. The parts and markings changed in the previous restoration were changed back to match the original series configuration from The Trouble With Tribbles. The grid lines on the bottom of the saucer now match the top as does the weathering on the entire model. All the mistakes from the previous 40 years were rectified. In addition, some internal supports were added to aid the model to prevent the staves from splitting in the future.
I believe Ed was influenced by the TMP refit and Jefferies Phase II Enterprise drawings to add the grid lines to the secondary hull. His placement was a bit different, but he followed the same basic design of rings with no longitudinal lines as the Phase II drawings. I think his goal was the display that NASM setup for Star Trek's 25th anniversary where the two Enterprises (the newly restored original and the fresh from ST:VI Refit) were displayed together for the first and last time, along with many other models, such as the series and movie Klingon battlecruisers. Gary Kerr has said that Ed was rushed and not provided the promised source materials and did his best under the circumstances and time allotted. The current restoration has had some very famous (at least in the Star Trek modeling world) names such as Bill George who helped supervise the detailing. The one flaw of the current restoration is that the NASM has taken a very exact and clinical approach to the paint colors. Likely some have discolored over time and the new paint was tinted to exactly match the samples taken from the model today. So the original 1960's colors are likely a bit different and Gary Kerry published a page where he attempts to provide modelers with an accurate set of colors. (https://culttvman.com/main/a-modelers-guide-to-painting-the-starship-enterprise-by-gary-kerr/) I find their selection of red and yellow for the markings to give a different final image than the color images from the original series, so I think the yellow was originally much brighter and the red probably as well. But detail wise, the model today is as it was in the last half of the original series (and pretty much as it was from the start of the main series run).
Fresh out of the shop: The Enterprise had painted windows and markings, but did not have many other details. It was painted in Gray and Metallic Blue-Gray
The Cage: Before going in front of the camera for the one shot from The Cage, the top of the saucer was detailed. Some weathering was applied and some rectangular markings were added to the port and starboard (on the top toward the edge) and to the bridge. These are clearly seen in each use of the shot, primarily in The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before. The aft end of the Nacelles was blank. The markings on the secondary hull (text on the sides and the shapes on the bottom) were added.
Where No Man Has Gone Before: The markings on top of the saucer were changed and lights were added. There was a light in the front of the bridge which was later removed, and not all the windows were the same as the later series modifications. All the stock footage for the entire series where we see the Nacelle spikes, raised bridge, and larger deflector dish come from here. The aft end of the nacelles and the impulse engines were detailed with dots. The nacelles in a grid pattern and the impulse engines with several pairs (over the original twin rectangles).
Season 1: The bridge was cut down, the deflector dish cut down, the spikes were removed from the nacelles and a new clear dome and lighting feature were added. The original domes were part of the wooden structure and had to cut of to add the new frosted domes. The original configuration was clear frosted domes. The entire model appears to have been painted with a new color that was slightly green. All the major markings were replaced and the font was altered slightly (The 1, 7, R and N are noticeably different), though the numbers along the secondary hull remained in the pilot font. The various parts were detailed in a variety of colors. More windows were added and some were pained over. The saucer was marked with grid lines top, bottom and edges. These were thin pencil lines and some had added weathering that enhanced them, mostly along the forward edge. The neck was repainted in two colors creating a line just back from the front edge. This and the seam between the wood and metal on the nacelles (just aft of the pylon) are the only lines anywhere on the model besides the saucer. I've seen some hints of an additional line on the nacelles at about the middle, but no one involved in the latest restoration found any evidence. The aft and of the nacelles got the balls (a ball cut in half to match the curve and attached in the middle of the aft cowling) and the impulse engines were restored to the original and a mesh was added to each side. Several changes were made to the engine details.
Season 2: It is unclear quite when the later changes happened, but by the production of The Trouble With Tribbles, the model was in its final configuration. There were some changes to the lights and the Nacelle domes went from clear to orange. No known changes happened after that point and the model had seen most of its use by that point. One of the last changes was to detail (with paint instead of altering the model physically) the trench on the inside of the starboard nacelle.
Season 3: No change
1972 college appearance: Sensor dish missing but otherwise intact.
1974 NASM arrival: Dish still missing, both nacelle domes and the inner moving structure have gone missing as have some of the clear panels and the rectangular plates under the front of the Nacelles. The wiring is intact and loose and the control box had been included.
1974 NASM refresh: The model is cleaned with an light abrasive (like Comet or Ajax) which removed all the weathering and most of the grid lines from all but the top of the saucer which they were asked to leave untouched. The paint and markings were touched up and the missing parts replaced with rough approximations. I am unclear if the lighting was working at this time, but the wiring was duct taped to the side. It is rigged to hang from the ceiling from 3 large metal eyes screwed into the wooden areas. Registry on the port nacelle was replaced. The control box for the lighting was lost.
1984 NASM refresh: The model was given a light repaint (just enough to give it a fresh finish, but enough to cover some of the areas originally painted different such as the gray under the front of the Nacelles and the turqoise along the front of the neck. All the original markings seem to have been left untouched and in a few placed the grid lines on the bottom were still visible. The lights were fully working and the wiring is covered with hull colored material. One of the details on the bottom of the secondary hull was painted the wrong color. The wiring was replaced.
1991 Ed Miarecki restoration: The model was in bad shape. The staves that comprise the secondary hull were splitting. The model was completely dissembled, repaired, sanded, repainted and more authentic replacement parts were made to replaced the 1974 parts. The process was extensively photographed and Gary Kerr participated, taking measurements of the model that were later used by Greg Jein to construct a 1/2 scale new studio model for DS9. Except for the top of the saucer, the entire model was repained and redetailed. The original pilot font markings were replaced with series font markiings. The grid lines were restored on the saucer, but during the weathering process, they were made too dark compared to the original. New lines were added to the secondary hull where there is no evidence of any before. The seam on the naclles was weathered and two additional lines were added and weathered (as I mentioned above, I think one of those might be accurate, but definitely not to the extent the weathering was applied). The grille on the inside of the port nacelle (the right doesn't have one) was replaced with a different pattern. Overall the excellent restoration was marred by the overdone weathering and the small changes from the original. A couple of physical changes were made in the way of cutting groves into the pylons and a few other things to hide the wiring.
2016 NASM full in house restoration: This was the first time the curators at NASM had supervised the work. They brought all their historical research expertise to bear and the call for photos from before the first alteration yielded a lot of information. There were many B&W photos from the series production as well as three vital color photos (on Kodachrome slide film) from the 1972 college excursion. This plus the research on the model itself (where they were able to find traces of the original paint and match the colors) yielded a wealth of information and gave them what they needed to accurately restore the model to its classic appearance. The parts missing from its initial arrival at the NASM were recreated accurately. The paint was matched and the entire model (again except for the top of the saucer) was repainted. The parts and markings changed in the previous restoration were changed back to match the original series configuration from The Trouble With Tribbles. The grid lines on the bottom of the saucer now match the top as does the weathering on the entire model. All the mistakes from the previous 40 years were rectified. In addition, some internal supports were added to aid the model to prevent the staves from splitting in the future.
I believe Ed was influenced by the TMP refit and Jefferies Phase II Enterprise drawings to add the grid lines to the secondary hull. His placement was a bit different, but he followed the same basic design of rings with no longitudinal lines as the Phase II drawings. I think his goal was the display that NASM setup for Star Trek's 25th anniversary where the two Enterprises (the newly restored original and the fresh from ST:VI Refit) were displayed together for the first and last time, along with many other models, such as the series and movie Klingon battlecruisers. Gary Kerr has said that Ed was rushed and not provided the promised source materials and did his best under the circumstances and time allotted. The current restoration has had some very famous (at least in the Star Trek modeling world) names such as Bill George who helped supervise the detailing. The one flaw of the current restoration is that the NASM has taken a very exact and clinical approach to the paint colors. Likely some have discolored over time and the new paint was tinted to exactly match the samples taken from the model today. So the original 1960's colors are likely a bit different and Gary Kerry published a page where he attempts to provide modelers with an accurate set of colors. (https://culttvman.com/main/a-modelers-guide-to-painting-the-starship-enterprise-by-gary-kerr/) I find their selection of red and yellow for the markings to give a different final image than the color images from the original series, so I think the yellow was originally much brighter and the red probably as well. But detail wise, the model today is as it was in the last half of the original series (and pretty much as it was from the start of the main series run).
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Why he was allowed to deface the model with his muddleheaded, hack ideas is a mystery. He screwed it up to the point where it was not worth looking at. Thankfully, his destructive mishandling has been erased from the model.
I have a friend who helped fix some electronics for Ed who said, "I don't know what Ed was thinking."
If you've ever been put in a tough spot with a lot of pressure on you, and made errors in judgement, you can understand. I think the flack keeps piling on, in part because Ed continued defending the result as being "accurate" when the universal reaction was otherwise.
If he had worked on something with no photo references whatsoever (e.g. like those who restore old paintings, pre-photographic era historic buildings, etc.), its likely he would not have earned such a negative response, but the 1701 model was well photographed in behind the scenes and publicity photos, so....
Yeah, defending that position makes no sense--especially after the recent restoration is considered as close to the production years as possible.
At the time he was working with the best materials available and he was on a time crunch. He had the model itself and made some discoveries. What he did do that no one seems to be giving him credit for, is physically restore the model back to a solid state. The Secondary hull was splitting apart, much as it was 20+ years later when the NASM decided to restore it again. Ed was working with limited resources and I believe he used Matt Jefferies Phase II Enterprise plans as a guide for the grid lines. The lines he added are very close to those. He also restored the missing weathering. The one mistatke he made was in weathering the grid lines. About 10 of them on the leading edge of the saucer he did almost right, but he carried that heavy weathering over to all the grid lines (the original ones and the ones he added). I think he misjudged and lacked the time to property experiment with different levels to find the right one. He did make a few other small mistakes, but in the end the model was closer to the look of the orignal series than it had been before and if the lighting was right, the grid lines did almost disappear. But as we can clearly see now, it was way too much and there is no sign of any grid lines on the secondary hull and only one line on the nacelles (the natural join between the wood and sheet metal that is visible currently and in so many pre NASM photos). Ed is a skilled modeler and was an ideal choice, but he was not provided any source materials and his way of filling in the blanks turned out to be wrong. We fans of the model really need to give him credit for his excellent work on the physical restoration which brought it to the 50 year mark. And the photos during the project really detail how the model goes together and gives a lot of details of the smaller parts. Had he been given more time and the same photos of the model that the current restoration had, I think the result would have been a lot closer. Definitely closer than the far too clean model it had been since 1974.
Well, if we go by the photos available in 1991, it wouldn't have looked anything like what it does now. There was a huge debate about the grid lines even before Ed's work and the larger concensus was there were none. Yet he found them on the model (Gary Kerr has posted many photos that show details of the model that reveal a lot of secrets and the number of behind the scenes photos that have shown up since has been amazing).
His treatment of the saucer was more accurate than it had been since it had been scrubbed clean of all the weathering in 1974. The colors he picked were pretty accurate. But he treated all the grid lines the same and overdid pretty much all of them. He also replaced the inner Nacelle grid with an innacruate one and changed the font on some markings, left off at least one and used an alternate (from the TOS decal sheet at least) for another. So his missteps were minor compared to scrubbing off all the weathering and painting over a lot of details like the two previous touch ups had done. So in the end we had a scrubbed clean model for 20 years and an over weathered model for 20 years and on average that is about right. Now they have done it right and we need to focus on what happened right from 1974 to 2014 - the model was cared for, on display, and given the repairs it needed to be a display piece. Now it has been given a place of honor as an artifact of the 60's that contributed to the dream of spaceflight and the source for the name of the Shuttle Enterprise. Sure there were mistakes along the way, but that has been true for a great many artifacts in the care of the Smithsonian and others. Take Paul Revere's house in Boston where they took off the third floor that had been there when Revere moved it (it had been an addition to the original building). Or the USS Constellation which kept being outfitted as an 18th century frigate when it is a 19th century corvette. Or USS Constitution which got restored to its 1858 look in 1928 after they had carefully restored it to match the crew made model from 1812 in 1907. Ed's mistakes are pretty minor in the scheme of things and his excellent work on the physical restoration held up as long as Datin's original construction had.
He scribed lines in the model where there were none. Even my grandson knows that that is "changing," not "restoring."
He added erroneous details, replacing original detail work, apparently to be amusing. Same note.
He may have made great models for TNG, but he was not a restoration artist. His work on the 11 footer was criminal. If indeed he didn't have the time or budget to do the job properly, he should not have accepted it. Having accepted it, he should have given it his best efforts, instead of "oh, what the f---, let's try this and see if people notice."
He did not scribe lines on the model. They were drawn/painted on as the originals were. Here is the list of what he did do that was a mistake:
Cut groves in the pylons to hide the wiring
Replaced the inner nacelle grille (original had medium sized small holes in a grid, replacement had a larger grid of larger holes interspaced with a smaller grid of smaller holes - the effect was the same but the detail was different)
Changed the font of secondary hull numbers
Removed the 3 small decals (inspection door vent and tail pipe decals) - one might have been replaced with an alternate from the TOS decal sheet
added grid lines to the secondary hull and nacelles
added heavy weathering to all grid lines except the top of the saucer
Now, the important things he did right:
He repaired and reglued the secondary hull, filled in all the cracks
Completely disassembled the model and repaired every part
Replaced incorrect parts from previous NASM work
Repainted the model to the correct colors (matched colors found on the model)
Restored obscured painted details
Restored the function of the warp engine lights complete with spinning parts
So what he did right far outweighs what he got wrong. And most importantly, he didn't do anything that permanently altered the model's appearance. The only permanent change he made was to the pylons and the NASM continued to hide the Nacelle wiring using those channels, which you can't see at all.
Probably looked great in pitch blackness.
No, not the lighting conditions at NASM. Ed claimed it would look right under studio lights. He was incorrect of course. The original weathering was much more subdued and carefully placed. If you look at the model now, you can see the front edge of the saucer has more pronounced grid lines than the rest and the bottom of the saucer was similarly treated with a bit of logic rather than the pretty much unifrom heavy weathering that Ed applied. But some photos taken with a bright flash wash out the grid lines to an acceptable level. He just misjudged how visible they were originally and I feel there really wasn't an excuse because he had the top of the saucer to work from. The ones that were supposed to be darker were about twice as dark as they are now and the others were about 4 time as dark.
Though it did look really good next to the refit for the short time it was in that display, but the rest of the time those lines just jump out at you and distract from the smooth lines of the ship.
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