U.S.S. Essex NCC-173

[bgt01]

This build is taking a slingshot maneuver into the past (or is it the future since their past is our...oh forget it) to build a ship from the early days of Star Trek - the Daedalus class U.S.S. Essex by Diego Cortez. The Daedalus class has never been seen onscreen, so there is no "canon" version of the ship. This model is based off the model of the U.S.S. Horizon seen on Deep Space Nine and the model built by Greg Jein for the Star Trek Encyclopedia. I made further alterations by redrawing the windows, hull markings and warp drive ends.

The secondary hull is a simple cylinder. I glued the ends to 1mm chipboard for strength and used a dowel to press the tabs flat against the rear end. Then added the cone and what I assume is the navigational deflector to the front. When I redid the hull markings I changed the "United Federation" to "United Earth Space Probe Agency." UF sounded strange and has never been used onscreen. Since this supposed to be one of the oldest spaceship designs and likely pre-UFP and pre-Starfleet, it made sense to me that Essex would fall under the original governing body of Starfleet - the UESPA.

 

[bgt01]

The neck is another simple tube. The pylons are designed with inner and outer sections that slide together. I built them that way, but they didn't go together. So, I cut the inner sleeves so they would, glued the tabs to the inside of the neck, and added a craft stick to each pylon for stability.

 

[bgt01]

The warp engines are also simple cylinders. I didn't like the plain red bussard collectors, so I modified them by cloning a design by Spaceagent 9 onto them using Photoshop. I redrew the rear ends of the engines in Illustrator to look cleaner and more like they are glowing. I substituted toothpicks painted with gold Sharpie for the engine points that came with the model. I pushed them clear through the reinforced end cap. Once the engines were in place I put brush on super glue around the seams to further stabilize them.

 

[bgt01]

I've never made a paper sphere, and I really don't want to ever do it again. This design is a pain, which I'm sure all spheres are. If I had to do it again, I'd build the sphere in strips and then join the halves. This one's definitely not great, but it's what I wound up with. I had some gaps so I glued small pieces of paper to the inside to plug them. Added the bridge module and closed it up.

 

[bgt01]

Final result is a unique looking ship. I like this design because it's retro and it actually seems logical to me - the secondary hull looks like it evolved out of an actual rocket stage and one of our first interstellar ships would have a simple design. Time to sail the spaceways of the 22nd century.

 

[zathros]

I like it, seems like a logical development!! It would be nice to see some pre-gravity plated ships. I don't know if there are any such drawngs?

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

This looks really good!!!

 

[vulcan8630]

Great job!!!

 

[paperpanzerust]

Where did you get that from ?

 

[bgt01]

Unfortunately, I don't remember where I got it. It was a free download and I don't see it on the Net anymore.

 

[Bhelliom]

The old address I found for it was http://www.geocities.com/andertonbargo/Magellan/uss-essex.zip, but it doesn't come up in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Diego had several other starships too, modified from Martin Sanger's Stargazer pattern. Two of his other models are still available at the LHVCC E-Gift Shop, here; http://jleslie48.com/gallery_models_scifi.html, with more here; http://dpileggispicks.com/index.html

As for sharing his models, I don't know. As far as I know, he hasn't been active online (in paper modeling circles, anyway) in several years. I could post them here, but would need moderator approval for that, with no direct permission from Diego himself.

Scott K.

edit: Oops, forgot to say, your build looks great! I had the usual problems with "engine droop" on mine. I like your graphical mods, too.

 

[mchale]

looks very nice

 

[bgt01]

I forgot to mention that I printed this model at 53% of its original size. At that size, the craft sticks I bought at Wal-Mart fit perfectly inside the pylons. I could have skipped using the inner sleeves, but didn't because I already had them cut out and wanted to see if they'd really go together...which they did not. That's likely due to my assembly than any design problem.

On a nerd side note, I'd hate to be the Starfleet engineer who came up with the neck-meets-hull-meets-pylon design of this ship. It looks neat, but one photon torpedo or one bad warp jump and that baby's coming in two! Besides, to get from the forward hull to the secondary hull you apparently have to walk through the pylon structures! That's like getting in your car through the engine!

 

[mcusanelli]

Beautiful job on this build, as with your others! Very neat and clean!
Mike

 

[spaceagent-9]

I bet that most of the secondary hull is fusion reactors and also matter/anti-matter reactors and fuel. but you are right, one hit and good by baby, and why walk thru a warp plasma conduit area if you don't have to.

 

[spaceagent-9]

Revelle-fan was very nice enough to let me mod some parts I liked from his Farnsworth device thread. here they are as nacelle cap alternates.


http://imgur.com/a/CZjTv