Trek Daedalus class starship scratch build

THIS IS AWESOME!! But, since you are using the 1/144 boosters from the shuttle kit, and that's what was used on the original, shouldn't this be a "studio scale" model? Ha ha, I don't really care what category this is in. I just love looking at this and waiting for your updates. Did you print your own decals?

Thanks! Never thought about the SS thread, lol. Yes I am doing the decals myself. They are a work in progress for now: just when I have a few mins. to put into them. They have changed considerably since those that I printed as a test (seen in the background of some of the photos). I'm slow but consistent!!!!

Looking great my friend.

Steve

Thank you Steve. Your speed on your Enterprise build has motivated me to move at least a little quicker, lol. It always amazes me how on this design it looks like the front is drooping. In photos of the original and on mine it does appear that way. I used a very thick brass tube and there is no way it is not straight; it's just an optical illusion. Interesting how your eye can play tricks with you.

I've gotta say, I'm really diggin' this build.

i attempted to scratchbuild an "under construction" daedalus last year, but i think my scale was all wrong,

so once I'm done my NX, i'm doubling the size so i can light it.

any chance you can link to plastruct where you purchased the hemispheres?

thanks,

keep up the great work, you're inspiring me!

Ordered the acrylic hemispheres from plastruct.com and the catalog number is: VHH-425

Hope that helps.

BTW, I am VERY interested in your NX refit project; cool idea. I am always interested in the out-of-the-ordinary Trek projects. Nice to see something besides a 1701 refit, lol.

Hi Will!

The Daedalus is looking great! I always loved that design, it's pure Jefferies. Mike Okuda and I pushed for it to be the basis of the NX, but the studio was afraid to abandon the familiar saucer config. Ultimately we both very much like the NX we ended up with. It is highly thought out, and you can draw a line directly to Matt's TOS ship. Brandon is doing a great job on what I am calling the Mark IV refit. It carries forward a nice logical evolution.

The diagrams I did for Trek Encyclopedia of the Daedalus were drawn directly from Greg Jein's model, however I know nothing beats a photo. I'm off over the holidays so I will see if I can find some shots of it for you.

Doug

Hi Will!

The Daedalus is looking great! I always loved that design, it's pure Jefferies. Mike Okuda and I pushed for it to be the basis of the NX, but the studio was afraid to abandon the familiar saucer config. Ultimately we both very much like the NX we ended up with. It is highly thought out, and you can draw a line directly to Matt's TOS ship. Brandon is doing a great job on what I am calling the Mark IV refit. It carries forward a nice logical evolution.

The diagrams I did for Trek Encyclopedia of the Daedalus were drawn directly from Greg Jein's model, however I know nothing beats a photo. I'm off over the holidays so I will see if I can find some shots of it for you.

Doug

Fantastic scratch build Feek61! What might be simple metal soldering for you is amazingly complex to me. I better start learning! So much more options at our disposal when you can work with all sorts of materials.

Drexler said:

Hi Will!

The Daedalus is looking great! I always loved that design, it's pure Jefferies. Mike Okuda and I pushed for it to be the basis of the NX, but the studio was afraid to abandon the familiar saucer config. Ultimately we both very much like the NX we ended up with. It is highly thought out, and you can draw a line directly to Matt's TOS ship. Brandon is doing a great job on what I am calling the Mark IV refit. It carries forward a nice logical evolution.

The diagrams I did for Trek Encyclopedia of the Daedalus were drawn directly from Greg Jein's model, however I know nothing beats a photo. I'm off over the holidays so I will see if I can find some shots of it for you.

Doug

Click to expand...

That would be great Doug. Anything you can dig up would be of help. I have always fancied this ship from the earliest sketches I saw in TMOST as a kid. Welcome to the forum and it's really great to have a source so close to the actual material.


Will


Love this Matt Jefferies drawing:

Can't wait to see her finished. You could always make a second one a mirror universe ship and use the nose art on it. I think that the nose art would fit right in for both universes. Remember in TOS each ship had it's own symbol on the crew uniforms. Who say's they didn't also have the symbol's on the ships at a early point in time.

Updates coming. I got some fantastic reference material from Doug Drexler!!!!!

^Awesome news! Cannot wait!!!

lookin forward to it!

Doug sent me a bunch of great renderings of the ship. I compiled a few of them and made this poster from the images he sent. I added the Matt Jefferies drawings at the bottom. Anyway, with these and the others he sent it has really helped pin down some answers to some mystery areas on the ship (not to mention giving me some really beautiful perspectives of this ship).

Thanks a million Doug!

Nice work! Now if only he would dig out those DS9 bottle labels he promised me ages ago :lol

Wait a minute!

Are those CGI renderings indicating the Daedalus has a THIRD Bussard scoop (the revolving half-sphere with Christmas tree lights) on the secondary hull?

I'dve thought that would be a suitable site for a forward deflector but I don't see an indication of a main deflector in either the drawings or CGI model!

The Daedalus is fine as a retro-ship, a true ancestor of the Constitution Class Starship. I disagree about the NX lineage; it just looks too much like the Akira Class and has too much detail to it. Something that has interiors that LOOK more advanced than the Constitution with a warp drive type from the first Star Trek movie really doesn't fit well from both a historical and technological sense. (I know Star Trek: ENT was intended to be an alternate universe series set up because of First Contact but the Execs wimped out and scratched out that idea while going ahead with something that doesn't fit into existing design chronology.) This is not keeping in line with what I've seen and read of both Matt Jefferies' drawings and his commentary on his design logic. For that matter, I really don't buy the Refit Enterprise being the same ship when nothing but 2% was saved from the original hull skeleton! ( <== Gene's fault; he was too sentimental about the original Ship when no such reconstructions happen in real life! Navy modernization of the Essex Class Carriers is also NOT the same thing; the original hulls and powerplants were retained and the main changes were to the flight deck. They were NOT beam to top of island rebuilds like some Star Trek fans believe!!!!)

<SIGH> Most logic departed Star Trek a long time ago... It happened around the mid-1970s when it changed into a movie series and got progressively worse as time went on with succeeding shows.

George I couldn't agree more! Not to mention the so called new JJ Abrams film. The ship and it's interiors are the biggest eye sore in Star Trek history. Talk about a Garbage Scow!

Still Drexler's designs are beautiful. But the studios want what they want a rarely what the fans want. The designers who are fans themselves can only do they're best. Although there were none of these fans and designers what so ever working on the JJ picture, thus the Garbage Scow!

Steve

GeorgeC said:

Wait a minute!

Are those CGI renderings indicating the Daedalus has a THIRD Bussard scoop (the revolving half-sphere with Christmas tree lights) on the secondary hull?

Click to expand...

I'm fairly certain that the red disc with white dots it meant to be a precursor to the TOS deflector dish.

SteveNeill said:

George I couldn't agree more! Not to mention the so called new JJ Abrams film. The ship and it's interiors are the biggest eye sore in Star Trek history. Talk about a Garbage Scow!

Still Drexler's designs are beautiful. But the studios want what they want a rarely what the fans want. The designers who are fans themselves can only do they're best. Although there were none of these fans and designers what so ever working on the JJ picture, thus the Garbage Scow!

Steve

Click to expand...

My own feeling on the last Star Trek film... Overall, I liked the film even if I felt the villain wasn't great. Casting for the principal characters was better than I hoped.

The Abrams-prise was definitely the biggest eyesore in the film.

(BTW, this was the first production by Abrams that I sat through all the way. I missed and lived without seeing any of his TV shows or other films. Frankly, I'm a Star Trek fan first...)

Personally, I would NOT have wanted to see a reproduction of Jefferies' TOS design. I agree to a point that an alternate reality Enterprise should look different BUT pay respect to the older design. This new design accomplished nothing new other than finalizing my opinion that science fiction film design had its glory days in the late 1970s and 1980s. Since the late 1990s, science fiction design has been awful. Nothing holds a candle to what was accomplished in the original Star Wars trilogy and the first two Star Trek films. Good thing Paramount saved the TMP sets and models for 20 years! That kept the later Trek productions from looking like complete eyesores... Never cared for the Ship designs after Trek II...

I think the starting point for a new Enterprise should have been the Phase II Enterprise designs and THEN add cylindrical nacelles on top of the Phase II pylons with a fixed main deflector dish the size of the TOS production Enterprise's.

It would have been a refinement of the TOS design but with elements to satisfy purists and people who wanted to see something different, not just another Refit knock-off or nonsense design that doesn't fit.

The Refit has a place (it's my favorite Starship design, period, of any fictional universe) but it's NOT the original Enterprise whether it's NCC-1701 or NCC-1701-A. The Refit was the biggest source of inspiration for the latest Enterprise design misadventure... Even Andrew Probert, one of the Refit designers, felt the new Ship was unbalanced. He was being diplomatic!

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BACK TO THE REAL-WORLD Daedalus...

Please forgive my rants and do post updated images if you have the time to do more work on your model.

It looks very good so far!