Post #490157

some guy said:
Louis Armour · December 20, 2007 - 17:35 EST #14
This summer (2007) I attended the World Star Trek convention in Las Vegas. There in the dealers room, sitting a booth was one of the men who restored the Enterprise for the Smithsonian. (I do not remember his name-sorry.) I had noticed a photo of the Enterprise restoration underway and asked him about it. He produced many more in-progress shots and his answers to my many questions were fascinating. He was really tired of hearing from people with no idea of what they were talking of telling him the restoration job had been a disaster. First off he told me that the original repairs were a total botch when the Smithsonian first attempted to restore the Enterprise. Inaccurate replacement of front sensor dish, wrong replacement of the nacelle caps, etc. The cables had been covered on the unseen side with duct tape! For the restoration of which he was a part of, everything possible was done to do an accurate job making her appear as she did in the last episode. The special effects company doing the repairs had built a number of the models for the later tv series- as such they were obsessive about doing a good job. They were given only 6 weeks and not enough money to do it properly- the Smithsonian really doesn't consider this item a prime display. His boss actually went into the red, paying for much of the repairs himself in an attempt to do it right. As paint was sanded down all layers of primer (and there were several colors) were identified and recorded. Original colors were identified and used in the restoration. The heavy weathering WAS originally there and had faded or been painted over in previous restoration. Studio lights faded out most of the weathering making it invisible on tv. In the Making of Star Trek paperback you can see much of this weathering on the original studio model. (Anyone who has looked at a few actual props can tell you that the paint is alot heavier-looking in real life than on the screen) About the only thing not restored exactly were the insides of the nacelle fronts. They now have leds instead of Christmas bulbs- but they look exactly the same in operation. He said despite many of the fans comments to the otherwise- nothing extra was added. He also commented that the Smithsonian seemed puzzled as to the length they had gone to to restore the Enterprise- "They don't see it at all as the fans do," he told me. As a model fanatic myself I was polite, but direct in asking for answers to many of the comments I've read about the lousy job they did. I'm now convinced it was in very capable hands and a very good job was indeed done.