# Excelsior Engineering Hull



## charonjr (Mar 27, 2000)

Guys,

Has anyone EVER found an accurate side profile of the USS Excelsior's secondary hull? All the images I've ever seen never quite show the side front part of hull above the deflector in a decent profile view. 

I know AMT's is not accurate, nor the E-B kit for that matter. The one photo of the Excelsior in spacedock hints at a much blunter bow than shown by these kits.

Ideas?


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## BlackbirdCD (Oct 31, 2003)

It's a lot closer than you'd think. There biggest problem with the AMT hull is that it's too long - by nearly a 1/2 inch. Once you correct this, the rest of the hull starts looking a bit more in shape (it pulls in the nacelles closer to the saucer, and the saucer in begins to look larger in proportion to the rest of the ship). Now there does remain some difference in the curvature, but it's really a small one. I personally have chosen to stop at simply shortening the hull.

An accurized Excelsior is one of my current stalled projects. Here's a few pictures with some references:

BlackBirdCD's NX-2000


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## BlackbirdCD (Oct 31, 2003)

Here's a shot with a decent side comparison:

Side view comparing the kits

The other big issue is that planetary sensor, the one on the bottom of the saucer. It's dreadfully mis-shapen on the kit and needs to be replaced entirely.


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## charonjr (Mar 27, 2000)

Yes, that side view I do have, and it is close to the perfect profile shot. Just wish there was one direct on, not just off by the teeniest fraction. I do like what you did, though. How would you have modified the bow of your physical model?

I'm hoping to accurize a 3D mesh I'm working on.

















Some of these photos I recently found might do the trick:


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## charonjr (Mar 27, 2000)

BlackbirdCD, you mention in your photos, that you were going to shorten the impulse deck? How did your project turn out?


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## machgo (Feb 10, 2010)

I would be interested to know what section, or 5/8" slug, you removed. Hard to tell from the pictures.

Oh, I see it now. Did you extend the oval opening that receives the pylon base thingy as well? Or just lay the base on top?


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## BlackbirdCD (Oct 31, 2003)

I'm just going to mount the nacelle pylon assembly on the hull without widening the hole. Looks like it should work just fine.

Charonjr, if I did anything to the seconday hull's shape, I'd consider bulking out the front, to make less of a shallow curve (in side profile). It doesn't need much, though.

I did a lot of work on the impulse deck, but haven't taken photos yet. Not only did I shorten it, I also slanted the tops of the impulse drive (in shots from the rear of the studio model, they're not squared like they are in the kit). I'll try to remember to get some pics out this week. My model is in the "come back to it" stack


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## starseeker (Feb 1, 2006)

I hadn't thought of this before, but I superimposed a drawing of mine (made from every decent picture I could find) over Doug Drexler's CGI blueprint of the E-B. They match reasonably well enough that I could believe Drexler's outline is actually accurate to the miniature. Might be of some help sorting out the hull shape:
http://s1004.photobucket.com/albums/af170/jkirkphotos/?action=view&current=Untitled-5.jpg
I've no idea how these compare to the AMT kit. If you're using pictures of the miniature for reference, you might want to make sure you use pictures of the original miniature and not Greg Jein's. Jein's has so many detail differences that I wouldn't be surprised that there are shape differences as well.


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## holt32 (Nov 5, 2009)

Blackbird I'm not trying come off like a jerk or anything but what evidence do you have to support the fact that the secondary hull is to long. From all the pictures I've looked at over the years I know the hull is to narrow and not as tall as it should be but I've never seen anything that makes me think it's to long. I think you may believe it to be long because it's not as wide or tall as it should be but when you finish your model you'll find that the secondary hull is to small for the rest of the ship. Hears a link to pictures of my fixed Enterprise-B you can see it match's the studio model pretty good. http://s1177.photobucket.com/albums/x348/jamesholt71832/USS Enterprise-B/


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## BlackbirdCD (Oct 31, 2003)

holt32 said:


> Blackbird I'm not trying come off like a jerk or anything but what evidence do you have to support the fact that the secondary hull is to long. From all the pictures I've looked at over the years I know the hull is to narrow and not as tall as it should be but I've never seen anything that makes me think it's to long. I think you may believe it to be long because it's not as wide or tall as it should be but when you finish your model you'll find that the secondary hull is to small for the rest of the ship. Hears a link to pictures of my fixed Enterprise-B you can see it match's the studio model pretty good. http://s1177.photobucket.com/albums/x348/jamesholt71832/USS Enterprise-B/


No offense taken at all, Holt32... jerk 

I thought for the longest time that it was merely too narrow, as well. Until I started looking very closely at the now-available photos and some diagrams. By correcting the length, you also correct width and height issues - plus it makes the saucer appear larger, something the AMT kits failed with in my first evaluation.

Here's my top view compared with a pretty good top-shot of the studio model. My secondary hull is already corrected here:









Granted I've just set my model pieces together, and not very well, but you'll see that the shortened, slightly widened hull matches more closely.

To confirm height, and the overall length from the side, see this shot (posted earlier):









I don't have any of my links on my work machine here, but someone on Hobbytalk posted some fantastic line drawings that were made after looking at all of these studio photos. I printed these out in scale with the Excelsior's Saucer and found that the following shapes are all good on the AMT kit:
- Nacelles (a little narrow, but not enough to warrant changing)
- Nacelle pylons (a little short, not sure if it's worth changing)
- Saucer (shape is good, excepting of course details like the grid, the planetary sensor, impulse deck, and where the neck meets)

The biggest, most obvious flaw, is the overall length of the secondary hull. It's off by a lot, and that significantly throws off the look of the rest of the ship.

Curiously, the Tsukuda vinyl model's secondary hull is the right length.


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## BlackbirdCD (Oct 31, 2003)

Here's some of the previous conversations about this model, with some excellent information:

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=293056&highlight=excelsior

And a link to Starseeker's reference material (plus drawings):

http://s1004.photobucket.com/albums/af170/jkirkphotos/My Excelsior Drawings/

And to be fair you don't have to follow my lead on any of this. I'm just exploring one possibility on how to better represent the Excelsior from the AMT kit. A complete scratch rebuild is probably the best option.


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## holt32 (Nov 5, 2009)

How long is the tsukuda kits hull.


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

starseeker said:


> I've no idea how these compare to the AMT kit. If you're using pictures of the miniature for reference, you might want to make sure you use pictures of the original miniature and not Greg Jein's. Jein's has so many detail differences that I wouldn't be surprised that there are shape differences as well.


Starseeker I remember when you posted thosed rawings on her about 4-5 years ago and I went and printed them out in order to better detail my build of the AMT 1/1000 scale kit and to make your drawings to be the same scale as the AMT kit I had to reduce the print out by about 60%. But the lribrary here has new soft ware for their printers and the size cannot be adjusted any more, nor can the images be rotated.


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## charonjr (Mar 27, 2000)

BlackbirdCD, you'll find that the AMT E-B has the correctly shaped impulse deck and decks 2 and 3. You'd have to change the impulse crystal/deck details and add the fins, but it looks pretty dead on. If you used the whole saucer, you'd have to get rid of the sensor packs....


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## BlackbirdCD (Oct 31, 2003)

charonjr said:


> BlackbirdCD, you'll find that the AMT E-B has the correctly shaped impulse deck and decks 2 and 3. You'd have to change the impulse crystal/deck details and add the fins, but it looks pretty dead on. If you used the whole saucer, you'd have to get rid of the sensor packs....


I've never owned an Ent-B model, that's fascinating. I wonder if they changed it for the new release, or if it was already corrected back when AMT first released it?

I'll have to dig out my kits and shoot some more pics.


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## jbond (Aug 29, 2002)

The reissued Enterprise B kit has a completely new lower primary hull as well as a different "top" to the secondary hull--and I would think both would fit the old Excelsior kit just fine. The planetary sensor dome is more accurate and there's a "trench" that wasn't on the lower saucer on the original kit.


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## Dr. Gonzo (Oct 3, 2000)

Having attempted both of these methods of correcting the secondary hull, personally I am not sold on either of the two. At least individually. When I started the thread (referenced above) here and on SSM I was already pretty well underway of adding bulk to the existing hull piece and thought it greatly improved the "look" of the kit compared to the studio model. Seeing Holt's build of the E-B with a variation of this method is nice as that's what I was trying to shoot for with my Excelsior - I only hope it turns out as nice when I get back around to it - and looks much more like the studio model to me. Nice job!

Additionally, I think Blackbirds research can't be dismissed. I spoke with him a bit over email months ago and he has convinced me he's on to something. I even tried his method on a spare Excelsior kit I had and even though my results just looked weird, I couldn't deny the pics of his kit modifications looked pretty good. I still think a little bulking up of the hull is needed however. Outside of a complete scratchbuild, I think a combination of these two methods would produce some great results.

I'm glad to see this discussion come up again. My excelsior has been sitting for a few months without any inspiration. Seeing the results of different approaches has gotten me interested in this kit again.


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## BlackbirdCD (Oct 31, 2003)

I think we're the same half dozen people all tackling this 

I agree with Dr. Gonzo, neither approach completely fixes the AMT kit. The Excelsior is a very strange shape overall. Although his work on bulking out the secondary hull does improve it a lot. I've begun to wonder if some of our perceptual issues lie in symmetry problems with the original studio miniature. I'd wager it's not entirely true in any one direction.

But in the end if you're happy with the result, that's the important part.


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## charonjr (Mar 27, 2000)

The original E-B release had the corrected deck 3/impulse deck angles. Same as the new release. EXCEPT: remember Blackbird, in your other thread, how you pointed out that from the rear the impulse engine vent top surfaces were angled? Not so in either AMT release. From the side, the impulse engines are angled front to back, unlike AMT Excelsior, more reflecting the hero model. But from the back, the vent top surfaces are horizontally flat.

Neither Excelsior nor E-B kits have the correctly shape bridge.

Also, on the E-B, the secondary impulse engines are molded with straight sides, instead of the angled sides the hero model has.


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## holt32 (Nov 5, 2009)

Also the phasers on the lower saucer are still in the wrong locations this was pointed out to round 2 after seeing a test shot of the lower saucer but they didn't fix it.


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

jbond said:


> The reissued Enterprise B kit has a completely new lower primary hull as well as a different "top" to the secondary hull--and I would think both would fit the old Excelsior kit just fine. The planetary sensor dome is more accurate and there's a "trench" that wasn't on the lower saucer on the original kit.


What R2 did was to accurize the top piece of the secondary hull by adding the raised part and the trench you mentioned was on BOTH the Excelsior as well as release of the E-B from AMT/ERTL. Just so you know.:wave:


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## btbrush (Sep 20, 2010)

Just as a sidebar, the AMT/ERTL Excelsior is a real collector's item as the molds were permanently changed to make the B.
Bruce


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## Captain America (Sep 9, 2002)

btbrush said:


> Just as a sidebar, the AMT/ERTL Excelsior is a real collector's item as the molds were permanently changed to make the B.
> Bruce


Typical Ertl. Destroy a perfectly decent Excelsior model in favor of its ugly son... :freak:

Greg


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

> ugly


UIGLY stands for Understaning Genours Lovable You.:wave:


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## charonjr (Mar 27, 2000)

irishtrek said:


> What R2 did was to accurize the top piece of the secondary hull by adding the raised part and the trench you mentioned was on BOTH the Excelsior as well as release of the E-B from AMT/ERTL. Just so you know.:wave:


Irishtrek,

Neither of the Excelsior or the E-B kits made by AMT prior to this Round 2 release had the trench that the neck is supposed to fit into. Sure receptacles for gluing, but not the curved trench that was supposed to be there. The first toy from Playmates for the E-B has the trench and the proper secondary hull docking system. Perhaps that was on their Excelsior toy, too.


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## run_forrest_run (Mar 18, 2010)

Note the difference in the detail of the deflector trench between the 2000 & 1701-B.....


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## Dr. Gonzo (Oct 3, 2000)

run_forrest_run said:


> Note the difference in the detail of the deflector trench between the 2000 & 1701-B.....


Never noticed that detail on the E-B before. Thanks for pointing that out!


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

charonjr said:


> Irishtrek,
> 
> Neither of the Excelsior or the E-B kits made by AMT prior to this Round 2 release had the trench that the neck is supposed to fit into. Sure receptacles for gluing, but not the curved trench that was supposed to be there. The first toy from Playmates for the E-B has the trench and the proper secondary hull docking system. Perhaps that was on their Excelsior toy, too.


Are talking about the blue colored trench that goes around like a ring? Because that's what I was reffering to. Correct me if I'm wrong.


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## jbond (Aug 29, 2002)

No, he's referring to the trench that runs around the neck where it joins the hull.


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

jbond said:


> No, he's referring to the trench that runs around the neck where it joins the hull.


Thank you for answering my question there, charonjr.


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## charonjr (Mar 27, 2000)

Sorry, been out of it for a few days, IrishTrek. I'm fighting pneumonia, and some days I just can't get out of bed.

The "trench" I was referring to is the depressed area in the lower saucer that the dorsal fits into.

I keep wanting to call the area you're referring to as a "ledge" of sorts, or a step? Anyway, yes, you are right, it was on the original E-B release, but not on the Excelsior, though it should have been. I had to add it on an Excelsior build back in '93.

The one on the E-B kit, seems smaller than it ought to be? What do you think?


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

I can see why you keep wanting to call it a ledge.
And after reading your latest post on here let me rephrase my comment about the trench, AMT/ERTL used the same mold of the saucer bottom for BOTH the Excelsior and the E-B if I'm not mistaken, and I've seen no difference between them. As for R2s reissue they did redo the saucer bottom.


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## ryoga (Oct 6, 2009)

Yup, the earlier ERTL/AMT Enterprise B kit shared the same mold design with the Excelsior kit

http://bruce-domain.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-review-of-11000-scale-amt-round-2.html


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## Landru (May 25, 2009)

Thanks for the link ryoga, that was a really cool read!


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## charonjr (Mar 27, 2000)

Now that I'm understanding what you're saying about the lower saucer, I agree about the old E-B issue and the Excelsior. They are the same.


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## Kavinsky (Mar 20, 2011)

Blackbird I'm going to be buiding this same excelsior kit and thus I'm wondering what you were intending to use for the neck and what you were going to do to the impulse deck

http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackbirdcd/4842286150/in/set-72157624487259655/


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