I've been convinced that the 35.5 and 40.5 was the way the set was actually built, but that it was probably intended to all look even - and for that matter does look even to the naked eye.
The best argument(MGagen's) that it was built 35.5/40.5 I've heard is that it would have been much simpler to draw even slices - but they didn't draw it that very simple way.
It was drawn in a very difficult manner. To draw 9 parts exactly even and one part a tiny bit larger you can't just criss-cross the centerpoint 5 times. You have to draw each ray from the center seperately and accurately.
That's a BIG pain in the butt! :lol:
The reason to do it?
I'm willing to bet the original set's pieces ended up being weird ridiculous English measurement system fractions that would have been a pain in the ass for the set carpenters to duplicate accurately ten times.(remember everybody used good, plain ole' English fractions back then - nobody used metrics - heck set carpenters probably still don't unless absolutely necessary).
So, being a practical set designer who knew the practical limits of his staff he rounded down the size of nine of the other pieces as little as he could to get to a workable set of measurements until the nine equal parts and the one slightly larger one were both easily buildable and recreatable using standard carpentry measurements.
A very practical solution.
Some might think I'm just guessing based on MGagen's statement - and I am.
But even if this is just a logical guess based on the evidence...
I would still ask anyone who would dismiss the theory to answer MGagen's question:
It is ridiculously more difficult to draw the Bridge as it was drawn, so if it wasn't really built that way, why go through all the difficulty to draw it that way?
Having said all that, I must say that I don't think it matters very much if one makes all the parts even. It would be unnoticable to the naked eye anyway, especially at full size.
I think the bigger problem is there are errors in the McMasters blueprints that I have seen no one post corrections to.
I don't really care if most parts are an infintessimal .5 degree off or a max 4.5 degrees in the viewscreen.
What I would like to see are corrections to the problems with the alcove/turbolift, Command Center area, and maybe the front viewscreen area redone with side walls as seen in TOS.(Not that the TAS info should be discarded, but there should be an optional version where the TOS area with that one panel pops open in case of emergencies via some nearby station button combo to reveal a hidden door to the emergency exit/entrance).
These are major issues that no one has fixed(at least in publicly available blueprints).
I could care less if someone tried to insert these fixes into a hair smaller or larger segments because I don't think anyone would ever notice that.
What is noticable are the errors in the alcove/elevator, Central Command, and viewscreen. If somebody were to fix those they would be a set prop hero and no one would give a hill of beans whether or not they used 35.5 or 36 degree slices.
I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that an able guy like Phil Broad will come through with some blues of those areas that will do just that! :thumbsup:
BTWay, glad to have you posting Asennad. Thanks for the file!
Don't sweat the 36 vs. 35.5 thing. As long as the other details are correct virtually no one will be worried about that.
)
