Due to Duhkat's new thread about Robert Legato, I decided to reread Bernd's Wolf 359 project, and was just wandering aimlessly when I came upon this famous picture:
And then I was looking at THIS schematic that someone drew up, featuring a drawing with and a drawing without the pod.
And I've noticed something. The front of the pod is not identical to the back of the pod in the first picture posted. I guess you could blame the handle of the coffee mug on this, but you can clearly see the front of the pod doesn't taper to a smooth point like the back half does. Instead, it merely ends, and is cut at a diagonal, like...
A deflector dish!
The dish is hard to see because it's resting up against the edge of that coffee mug handle, and since the picture is rather bad it's hard to determine where the handle ends and the pod begins.
Now going further with this, I believe the pod is a Galaxy engineering hull model piece. The shape looks about right, the only difference is the neck as been removed and the rear has been sanded down so it has that smooth rear end. You can almost see where the curvature from the bottom of the Galaxy engineering hull is, where those three large cargo bay doors are located.
So, anyone else agree with me here?
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
OMG, you could be right! The size is about right, and it would be only logical, cinsidering that one foreward end with deflector is left over from the kit.
The only thing that disturbs me is that there is no aft cut-out, but the perspective could have deceived us all the time.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Yes, a deflector dish, although I didn't think this idea was anything new, as it was what I speculated when I built the model as seen here: (this is an old render from the ship when it was only half finished, it is the only one I have where I bothered to show the pod in any detail))
I don't have any other detailed views of the pod to hand, none on my server anyway, perhaps somewhere on my hard drive. The idea though that the modelling component used for this being the Galaxy engineering hull is definitely intriguing....
[ July 22, 2002, 16:06: Message edited by: The Red Admiral ]
Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :
It fits, but Miarecki must have added something to the rear end. I don't think that the cut-out is still on the piece.
The only problem with this theory though (and I had to investigate this when building the 3D model) is the scaling issue. For those struts for the pod which intersect with the edges of the saucer, the pod has to be rather large, and wide. The saucer is significantly wide, being elliptical, and when scaling the pod to roughly correspond with the available pictures of the Springfiled, the pod came up as being virtually circular, almost elliptical itself (across the X axis). This is not the shape, however, of the Galaxy secondary hull.
Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :
I believe the struts are similar to the Oberth. They look like this:
___Saucer____ ..\______/ ....Hull
Forgive the crudity of my drawing, but the \_ and _/ would be the pylons. They go outward then up when coming out of the engineering hull. This would allow the pod to be the correct size, and allow the pylons to connect to the outer edges of the wide saucer. It is obvious to see the kink in the pylons, where they go from being mostly horizontal to mostly vertical.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
I agree in part, but I still believe the pod to be too wide to be the Galaxy secondary hull exclusively.
I just quickly loaded up the Springfield mesh and rendered a couple of images. I'm not saying that my pod here is correct, or accurate in shape, just how my mesh turned out after analysing and studying the available pictures...
[ July 22, 2002, 16:06: Message edited by: The Red Admiral ]
Posted by Red BWC (Member # 818) on :
Didn't Miarecki intend it to be 'today's oberth'?
Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :
See, the thing with your mesh Red Admiral, is that fact that you just have those pylons slanting down. But I believe that the pylons slant downward, then they curve to an almost perfectly horizontal angle, which would allow them to go as long as they want, so your Galaxy hull could be the exact shape. If I could upload a quick sketch it might make more sense...
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Ah, right right right. I see where you're going now. And looking at the photo again I think you might be right! This could be a careless error on my part, although in fairness to myself it isn't obviously apparant :-), but yes, they do look like they're curving inwards. This is going to involve some remodelling on my part if you're right...
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
With the new information I've remodelled it briefly, and, hopefully, this is now going to be a more consistent and accurate representation...
Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :
That definatly is the way I pictured it, good job Red Admiral
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
RA: The pylons should actually connect to the pod farther down, at the widest part of the pod.
[ July 22, 2002, 23:17: Message edited by: TSN ]
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
I dunno, they look to me to be about right....
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I think they should also be further down, just a fraction above the wide rim.
Quiet you.
Posted by iam2xtreme (Member # 836) on :
quote:Originally posted by The359:
If you look closely you can see that the pylons do actually join on to the "rim". Theres no way they join as high as the Red Admiral put them in his otherwise spot on rendering.
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Yes you're right, I can see that they should be a little lower down, but that amendment I made to the original mesh was only a very quick job, I was just experimenting whilst discussing the matter with the359. There's no problem, I'll make a more accurate job of it as and when I can...
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
There's another thing. I'm not so sure those are separate pylons. I think it's just one bigass one with a dark strip running down the middle.
Posted by The359 (Member # 37) on :
No, I think it's two pylons. If the center were merely a stripe, I'd expect it to be a slightly darker color then the shadows on the pod.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
Well, the question is, what are the pylons made out of? To me, it looks like there are two (not one w/ a stripe), and they sort of resemble the Miranda rollbar (each one would be one half of the rollbar; the horizontal part of the rollbar is the vertical part of the pylon).
Is there a Miranda model kit that would have rollbar pieces that would fit?
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
Hmm, can't tell if they're the rollbar or not... could well be though
Anyway, here's an updated Chekov picture, with altered pylons, and the pod itself, whose shape I've refined to match the photo a little better.
It's getting there, this isn't the final Springfield yet...
For what it's worth, the Reliant AMT model kit is exactly the same scale as the Enterprise-A model kit.
Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
Im not sure....since it seems the lower hull was modified from a Galaxy hull, could those pylons be modified Galaxy pylons? From some of the angles in the picture, it seems if you trimmed and shaped them correctly, they might just work.
Of course, that would mean the attachment point on the saucer would have to be closer to the centerline.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
If I didn't know better I'd say that that pylon was an upside down Oberth pylon with a dark stripe.
Were there any AMT Oberth kits around at the time? Or could the builder have used a cast of the filming miniature?
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
There have never been any AMT Oberth kits. I would have one if there were, and I don't.
Posted by The Mighty Monkey of Mim (Member # 646) on :
quote:Originally posted by First of Two: There have never been any AMT Oberth kits. I would have one if there were, and I don't.
BTW, they definitely look like separate pylons to me.
-MMoM Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
That's SFSM's vacuform Oberth. I own one. I'll never put it together because vacuform kits are a fucking son of a bitch pain in the fucking ASS.
As a physical modeler, I'll say this: your configuration would be disastrous, RA. Those pylons need to extend outwards from the ventral pod more & then gently slope up. Plus the connection points would have to have a wider stance, meaning that on the bow elevation, they should connect farther outboard than where you have them. Right now, it looks like the nacelles are rising up from those pylons, & it gives the whole ship that squnched look. I'm willing to bet that if that photo was dead side-on, we'd see a goodly amount of gap space between hulls.
Posted by Rogue Starship (Member # 756) on :
You know...In my very un-expert opinion I think the deflector dish is a little to wide...or is that how it is in relation to the rest of the ship, as compared to a Galaxy???
Before I thought this ship was butt-ugly...but with all these new renderings I think it is pretty cool looking.
RS
Posted by The Red Admiral (Member # 602) on :
There's no way to tell what the pod really is, or looks like in any detail. So the model merely reflects artistic license and speculation.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)