And finally the reason I did all this: finishing up the magnetic lock.
Trek may have been the heir to Forbidden Planet story-wise for its first season (heir to Another World for the rest of its various runs), but even the first time around it always looked to me that, apart from the bridge, the sets and props could have been made out of flat sheets of cardboard taped together.
It was LIS that inherited the amazing sets and props and effects from Forbidden Planet. To my mind, the upper deck, the pilot lasers, the force field projector, and the Chariot are all among the very best of anything ever designed for any SF movie or program. But that magnetic lock...
It was only incompletely shown for a few seconds in a couple of episodes but it is the most incredible bit of set design ever. The Trek people never even came close, not until Andrew Probert and especially the hangar bay in STTMP. The thought and care and craftsmanship that Kinoshita and crew put into these things was (and possibly still is) without precedent. With the possible exception of Forbidden Planet. How much work did they invest in this little throwaway? Amazing.
The Robot: also amazing (but in a different way) is the fact that the Robot still exists. Actually, two of them exist. But what's amazing about that is, no matter where I look, there are still no dimensions for the thing available. There are whole B9 Builders groups and people flogging home made fittings for building your own full scale Robot, but nobody has come to a consensus on the dimensions. The widest shoulder diameter still varies ay an inch and a half or two. True, in 1/24 scale, this doesn't matter a whole lot. But not one, but both original Robots still exist. You'd think somebody would take a tape measure, put it around the Robot in various places, take a picture of where the numbers overlap and that would be the end of the discussion. But, no.
At least the full scale builders have got the shape of the legs (either pair) right, something that hasn't happened in plastic yet.
The physical dimensions of the solid bits Robot are one thing. At least they can't change if they were ever measured. The height of the Robot is something else. The head was designed to extend and retract a couple of inches. And the legs were flexible, at least in the first season, and could expand and contract considerably.
The dimensions on the Fox blues of the Robot from the waist down are considered by the full scale builders to be pretty accurate so I've kept them. All the rest of the dimensions are approximate. Since the lowest soffits in the lower deck were 6' 6" from the floor, it makes sense that the Robot was no more than 6' 6" tall near its tallest, a figure which the addition of all the solid and approximate dimensions supports. That he was approximately 6' 1 1/2" tall typically seems a fair estimate both from adding all the dimensions and from watching the show.
The Robot's diameter is different in my two views of the Robot, to reflect the various estimates of the Robot's different diameters.
I also had a notation on this sheet about the colors and placements of the 12 flashing lights on the Robot's instrument panel. But not only did they change from 1st season to 2nd season to 3d season, I started finding photos of other color combinations within the seasons, so I gave up. You can make those lights any arrangement of blue, orange, yellow, red, green and clear (white) and no one can prove you wrong.
Also a lot of various Robot details, just because I was interested in them. They should be overkill for any 1/24 to 1/6 scale model. Beyond that, check out the full scale builders. But even there, they're missing details that are clear on DVD. Ah, but don't get a rivet counter started...