USS Excelsior NX-2000

[Shaw]

This looks stunning!

 

I'm wondering... in your research have you come across the reason for modifying this area on the original model for the NCC version? The images I have of the model when filmed for TNG don't show any damage to this area that might require repair/modification... and the changes weren't all that visible in STVI.

 

Just curious if you had heard anything about it.

[Vidar_710]

The NX version of the studio model actually saw three names on it in the Trans Warp configuration: The Excelsior, as well as the Hood and the Repulse in early season episodes on the Next Generation. Other than name changes, the changes to the "conventional" Warp configuration with no painting changes were: The Bridge Dome, The round aft hanger bay dome to a box shape, and the removal of the single large Trans Warp dome for two smaller conventional ones.

 

The Warp dome changes were actually no physical change to the model. They simply made a tomb stone shaped panel with greebles on it (with the two-dome config) and placed it over the recessed Trans Warp trench. The panel was thick enough to make it flush to the surrounding hull details. However, that panel even came up a little short exposing the very aft edges of the NX details lying under it.

The model maintained this configuration for a while under different names... i.e., Melbourne and so on.

 

Eventually, the model received a complete repaint destroying the distinct original hull characteristics for ST:VI. My guess is the model was showing her age and needed a facelift for the big screen. The Excelsior as seen on Voyager was a completely different model built by the late Greg Jein.

 

Eventually the original studio model went through a big update with complete repaint and new surface plating and paneling details for the Enterprise-B as seen in ST: Generations. This configuration would later see the model as Lakota in ST: DS9.

 

Tracy

[Vidar_710]

I'm posting this image again because I've made a discovery! If you look closely, you can see a thin silver line all the way around the blue field framing the bridge dome. This will be fun to recreate since Alps Printers that could print silver have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

Note the railroad track paneling in the blue panels. Apparently, Bill George (the supervisor for building the Excelsior studio model) says these panels were painted using left over friskets from Death Star 2 in "Return of the Jedi". John Eaves is also looking into to these for me as well. He's friends with several of the original modelers.

 

I'll be taking a rest from the build for a bit. I'm away from home learning the fly the Boeing 777 for the next month or so. I'll be getting back to it as soon as I can. I still haven't cleaned up the latest paintings, and It bugs me. 

 

Tracy

 

[Vidar_710]

Calling the master's pretty much done for top surfaces. There are blue panels that are on the sides of the superstructure that come next.

 

A lot of clean up and tweaking was needed. Some of the fine pinstriping were too big and had to be completely redone to fit properly.

 

 

[Vidar_710]

I discovered a repeating pattern used in the Excelsior's trench (blackened in). The deflector grid is in 15deg pie wedges, but the pattern is only 10deg wide. This causes the pattern to vary in position from one wedge to the next. Furthermore, a copy of this pattern is cut in half width-wise to fill in under it for the inner half of the trench.

 

The plan is to draw this pattern by hand in my scale so it can be scanned and cleaned up digitally. This will allow me to make paint templates using a cutting machine like a criqut.

[southwestforests]

Some unique discoveries being made here.