original enterprise in smithsonian

[ILMwannabe]

I know that they tried to do a professional restoration, but you should not add things to a model that were not there before. Many Star Trek fans have taken offense at the highly visible grid lines painted on the lower saucer, saucer edges, engines and secondary hull which simply were not there before. I´m glad that they were able to relight it when they first displayed it, at least for a while, since lamps do burn out eventually. That was a big plus. But the one flaw was the addition of those lines. It was artistic license taken too far and they are totally inaccurate. It has been said that now we have to wait another 25 to 50 years until perhaps another restoration is done so that fans can lobby to have those awful lines removed.

 

[CessnaDriver]

The Smithsonian should have done a better job on researching the details and communicating that. I won't jump on the artists that restored her too much.
The museum should have been paying closer attention.
I know probably a lot of reference material wasn't available then as well, but never on TV did we see any hint of those kind of features, so I am puzzled where the inspiration came from as a model builder myself. Yes, and a lot of important good work was done and she is safe with her glass shields up now. Fans of course are more demanding today, so we are griping about a restoration that was done many years ago now.
They did spend money on her and stabilize and eliminate problems.
I am sure the same people would approach things differently today.

 

[dcarty]

I'd be curious to see some of the steps that were used in the 1991 restoration. If the paint on the hulls was sanded down at all they would have seen--should have seen--what was beneath the paint from the previous work and taken cues from that as well as whatever meager photo reference there is.

It's almost a pity that the Smithsonian subcontracted the work rather than handling the restoration themselves. I wont say they are infallible but it seems like there would have been a more archival approach to the work than what we have seen.

 

[phase pistol]

Yep. Original gridlines: barely visible pencil lines. New gridlines: heavy and accented.

Pic from the awesome IDIC page.

 

[dcarty]

Ahh, the IDIC page--man, I miss that site!

After I made my post above I remembered the pics of the 1991 restoration Kuhn Global posted over at Modeler Magic: TOS 11 Foot USS ENTERPRISE 1701 Studio Model Restoration

 

[ILMwannabe]

Fantastic picture feek61 - I´ve never seen this one before! Many thanks to you and the others who posted these great pictures! So it´s true, they really did use broken mirror bits to achieve maximum reflectivity. It´s too bad the Sensor dish, Christmas Lights, spinning disks, and clear domes were missing when it was donated to the museum.

I also noticed that the upper dish not only had a red light on the edge (at the nine o´clock position, when seen from above, bow on top) and a green light at the 3 o´clock position, but it was also built with a light (probably white ̸ clear) at the 12 o´clock position. That light was painted over and never used or seen during the TV series, but it was apparently revealed after the restoration.

Lastly, why doesn´t the museum display the control box for the ship? I´ve heard that the museum has it and yet it has never been seen by most people, not even in pictures. It is a large box that controlled the lights, the flash rate, motors, etc. Or for that matter why not at least publish a picture of the famous large decal sheet, before it rots and is lost forever?

Yes, that nacelle effect to me is still the best.

 

[ILMwannabe]

Hey feek61 and fans, did you check out those fantastic restoration pictures at Kurt Khun´s site? Did you notice that the beacon over the shuttle bay appears to have been three lights in one? (even though it only appeared greenish white in the second and third season of the TV show).

There was a green disk with a cutout, perhaps for a light, but also what looks like a red and an orange lamp also on the disk, which was underneath the clear dome which goes over the shuttle bay.

And yet, in all those restoration pictures, all the original lamps and wires have already been removed and undocumented. All I could see were some light tubes (the early 60s equivalent to today´s fiber optics) inside the gouged out wooden B deck. The gouged out wood is testimony to the fact that the model did not originally have any lights.

Contrary to some magazine articles which stated that the saucer was made from vacuformed plastic, viewing of the pictures seem to indicate that the saucer was also made of wood, or a wooden framework for support, and then finished and covered with thin plastic.

Also interesting is that even though I have heard stories that the top plastic part of the saucer can be removed to access the wires and lights, to date I have seen no photographic evidence that the top part of the dish has ever been opened up since it was last worked on in 1966, when weathering, details, and additional lights were added. The edges look clean, with no parting lines indicating separate sections.

It seems that the 11 foot model is so large that one can just fish and route the wires and lights inside the hull without taking the saucer completely apart. Or am I mistaken?

 

[Angelus Lupus]

Yep. Original gridlines: barely visible pencil lines. New gridlines: heavy and accented.

Pic from the awesome IDIC page.

Wow, that really shows how it went from subtle and beautiful to heavy-handed and overdone. They just slapped that paint on, didn't they? Not even bothering to put the correct signage back on? Shame.

 

[feek61]

I think the colored "lights" in the dome over the hangar bay were actually colored plexi rods under the dome. That's the same way they did the lights to the A/B deck windows (light tubes). The saucer top is NOT removable. The way the lights were added after the first pilot was they cut holes in the top of the saucer and added them from the top fishing the wires through the wooden frame that supports the plastic skin; you can see in the below photo that the lighted squares on top of the saucer line up with the lighted windows along the edge of the saucer. Interestingly enough on the back right side the square is just painted because of course there are no lights there but they painted that detail to match the other holes that were needed to add lighting to the areas we see on film.

There was never a light on the top front of the saucer although that may have been the original intention. It looks like they decided after cutting the holes that the flashing running light should be on the front edge; not on top (in the second pilot only). Eventually the production modifications to the ship removed this front beacon light and made it one of three front windows. The hole on the top of the saucer was actually painted over and there was never a light there during the show (although the MR has that spot lighted; it's not accurate to the true miniature). The bridge and A/B deck were made of wood.

Honestly I wish they had never "fixed" the other unfilmed / unfinished side of the ship (just cleaned it up). I would rather see her as she originally was with holes, wires, plugs, transformers and lights hanging out all over. Since the ship originally was unlit the modifications they made to add the lighting were very crude. You see on the dorsal from the secondary hull to the saucer that the lights were simply stuck in from the back side (the unseen side); not even inside the model. The power for the engines was equally obtrusive. They simply ran wires on the outside of the miniature and filmed it so they would not be seen. You can however see them if you look close!!!

(I got the restoration photos from Kurts site. Kurt, I will remove them if you want)

Enlarged section from the screen cap above. Normally during filming the wire would have run up the inside of the pylon but since that area was seen during this shot the wire had enough slack in it to be pulled around the edge so it couldn't be seen. They could not however move where it came through the secondary hull and that's what we are seeing here.

I love this photo! It's one of the rare photos showing the unfinished side. Notice the plugs used to power the nacelles. They were simply hacked into the wood. BTW, the front of the engines were solid wood and behind the pylon they were sheet metal (which is much lighter). The weight of the wood counter-balanced for the length of the engines (or visa-versa).

 

[Wes R]

It was taken down and put away when i was there in 94-95 I think. Well the museums aren't known for putting the best stuff out. They have all the cool stuff stuffed in warehouses like the Horton flying wing the nazis made. This ship should be in a display case sealed away from the elements on the main floor. If they don't have room they should take over another of the less interesting museums in the area.

 

[Shaw]

And yet, in all those restoration pictures, all the original lamps and wires have already been removed and undocumented.

That is an odd statement... I can tell you where every bulb went on the 11 foot model, and how the original wiring got to them. The model was made very simply, and avoided the overly complicated things that people go through for "display" models. Remember that the model was originally built to be shot from only one side, when she was altered to have internal lighting, this was totally taken advantage of to make her easy to care for as possible.

For example, other than the flashing marker light on the side near the shuttle bay, all other lighting of the secondary hull was accomplished by three standard light bulbs placed inside of two of the four cavities. There were two light bulbs (most likely 100 watt) in the front most cavity and one in the rear most cavity.

This should give you a little idea of how it might have looked inside the aft cavity back in the 1960s.

The major difference between this image above and how the model was when shot was that the wiring was taped to the out side of the model, where as in later years those wires were moved inside.

All the information that one really needs to know about the Enterprise is publicly available... though one just needs to take the time to really look at what they are seeing to get it. There isn't a lot of mystery left to this stuff, it just isn't in a convenient form.

 

[Apollo]

I had quite a few but they were lost long ago.

Enterprise has been in 3 or 4 different spots at the air and space.

She was in near top form wasn't she at that point?

I keep hoping somehow more pictures from that event will surface someday.
You just know they are sitting in old photo albums, I know lots of people must have taken pictures of the exhibits.

 

[trekriffic]

Great pic! I'd heard there was a light on top of the bussard collars but had never seen a picture of it, nor have I ever noticed it on screen.
Does anyone know if this light was actually lit or not?
Thanks for posting this CessnaDriver.

 

[Treadwell]

I seem to recall that that light was really a light pipe, meant to transmit light from inside the dome. Supposedly didn't do that very well at all.

 

[CessnaDriver]

Is it verified that the grills on the warp engines were indeed something that they wanted to light? Or is that just some lore that has built up over the years?

Seems every other CGI TOS E people do has them glowing.


Another bit of the Enterprise missing is the internal hanger bay model used for shuttlecraft shots. I guess that was lost forever very early on. I have never seen a picture of it other then what was on the show.

 

[Shaw]

Is it verified that the grills on the warp engines were indeed something that they wanted to light? Or is that just some lore that has built up over the years?

Seems every other CGI TOS E people do has them glowing.

My guess would be no.

The channel feature on the port nacelle was carved in wood, so lighting would have meant cutting into that. On the starboard side (which only had a painted area to represent the channel for that nacelle) it would have meant cutting into the sheet metal along the seam.

This is an early sketch of my studies of the 11 foot model's nacelles...

Click to enlarge​

Interestingly, one of the consequences of the port nacelle having the channel is that it is heavier than the starboard nacelle... and tends to hang lower because of this.

Also, I've found evidence that the channels may have originally been intended to have been pointed downwards rather than inwards on the original plans.

As for the marker lights on the top of the nacelles, the physical parts were lost before it made it to the Smithsonian. It doesn't look like they light up in any effects shots and there doesn't seem to be a direct path for them to get light from the forward domes.

But I believe that those were always supposed to be there. They seem to have always been part of the 33 inch model, but may have originally been omitted from the 11 foot model in the pilot because of time issues (the 11 foot model was built in three weeks after all).

 

[feek61]

I heard the original hangar deck miniature was destroyed. It was huge; at one time I knew the dimensions but it was 15 or so feet long and 10' wide if I remember correctly. It was built using a force perspective and filmed with an wide angle lens to make it appear huge. It had no internal lighting; all of the lighting was done from the outside of the model. Here are a few photos I have of the hangar deck miniature. The shuttlecraft miniature was just under 24" long so that give you an idea of the size of the model.

In this photo you can see the plywood structure of the model and also the cables on the lower right that operated the turntable.

 

[gonk27]

There were two light bulbs (most likely 100 watt) in the front most cavity and one in the rear most cavity.

:confused .. this may be a dumb question, but where does all the heat from those lightbulbs go?

I don't see much ventilation.

 

[trekriffic]

I'm guessing the secondary hull was made from fiberglass and I think it would be fairly heat resistant.

 

[CessnaDriver]

I would bet they didn't leave the lights on a long time, probably only during shooting.

I think the heat from the studio lights was pretty stiffling in the summer based on some pics I have seen of the people working shirtless around it.

I think maybe two facilities were used though? I seem to remember that it was moved to an air conditioned studio at some point.