Star Trek Screen Used Costumes & props
The research and details in this article would have been impossible without the help of our good friend Paul over at the "Star Trek Screen Used Costumes and Props" website. Paul
owns the original Engineering-7 display and has been so gracious in providing details and photos of this amazing piece of history.
This section will detail how the originals were made. Luckily a friend owns one of the original displays so we have a little insight into the way these were constructed. This drawing
by Matt Jefferies gives us the basics of the layout.
The basic structure was a wooden box lined with sheet metal. For the blinking lights there was a sheet metal grid soldered together to form little square compartments where the lights were.
The box had lights in the back and the graphics and glass in the front. With an understanding of the basic construction lets go into a little more detail; shall we?
The outer most portion facing the bridge set (we will call this the front) was a piece of black architectural glass which was actually not attached at all to the display but mounted to the
surface of the console frame. During the first few episodes this was regular glass; not frosted. It gave us a much clearer view of the graphics but caused horrible glare problems
because the stage lighting would be reflected in all of the individual glass display panels. They would use black cardboard panels to cover any display that directly reflected the light
source that showed up where the camera was set-up. You can see these black covers throughout the series but most prominently on the very early episodes (check them out in "The Corbomite
Manuever," they are very evident). Slowly over several episodes they started changing the display outer glass with frosted glass which helped with the problem but also blurred the graphics;
especially since there was a gap between the outer glass and the graphic layer of the display. They started off on the stations that were directly in the cameras point of view and moved out
until sometime in the mid first season they had them all covered.
Next the display had two pieces of clear glass with the photo negative graphic and colored gels in between them (the graphic was sandwiched between the two clears layers of glass) It was
attached around the entire perimeter of the glass to the wood frame with black gaffers tape. The tape was the only means of attachment to the box: nothing else. The backside of the
graphic had colored lighting gels glued flat on the backside of the graphic. When I say glass I mean glass; not plexiglass. When Paul who owns the original "Engineering-7" bought the
display the front glass that the graphic was attached to was broken. He had to carefully remove the graphic from the broken glass and replace the broken glass with a new piece.
This is the original glass. Notice the cracks in it and also note the gaffers tape around the perimeter. This panel obviously is 10" X 10"
Here is the graphic after the glass had been replaced. This was very tedious because the graphic film could have easily been damaged from the broken glass. The replacement glass now has a metal channel around the perimeter instead of the original black gaffers tape.
Here is a photo showing the back of the graphic. Notice how nicely the colored gel filters are glued to the back.
Lets talk about the box now. The box as stated earlier was just a plane square wooden box. As you can see in the photos this was not any type of finished-grade lumber nor was it put together with much effort. It is very rough; just some unfinished 1 X 4 material stuck together. The box itself was 10 9/16" square (so it was slightly bigger than the 10" graphic layer) and it was lined on the inside with sheet metal. On the back of the box there were two pieces of wood blocking. The purpose of these blocks was to keep the rear panel which contained the lights off away from the back of the box creating a gap between them. The purpose of this gap was to vent the heat. The incandescent lighting created enormous heat; so much so that special air-conditioning equipment had to be brought onto the set to cool these display panels down. They would only be turned on for filming and when the director yelled "CUT" they would be turned off. They also drilled holes around the perimeter of the wood box to help dissipate the heat. Here is a good side view of the box showing the rear panel held off the back by the blocks and the holes randomly drilled round the sides.
Inside the box where ever there was any sort of blinking light; a sheet metal grid was soldered together to block the light from affecting any other part of the graphic. On the front side of the box under the graphic layer was white plastic used to diffuse the light. Think of when a doctor looks at an x-ray; he puts it up against a lighted white plastic panel. This was the same sort of material. On the TOS displays the white plastic was actually cut between all of the sheet metal so that each little square had an isolated piece of white plastic. That way no light was transmitted through the plastic into adjacent areas of the display because the sheet metal grid prevented it. It was completely isolated to that individual compartment. The soldering of the grid was done very sloppily without much effort to make the parts the same size. Notice the grid on the second row of lights. Here is a photo showing the front of the display box. This view is just under the layer that contained the graphic:
In this photo you can see that the white plastic is distorted. That is from the heat that the lights generated. On some of the few displays we have seen the plastic was completely melted through.
In the above view you can see that by the sheet metal grid that all six lights on the left side were set to blink and then one on the row next to it. If you look at film clips of this panel you will see that is exactly the way that it actually functioned (as reflected in this accurate simulation);
The rest of the open area without the grid simply had a series of lights that stayed on continuously and lighted the rest of the display. Here is the box with the back lighting panel removed giving us a good view of the sheet metal liner and also the vent holes around the perimeter of the box. Also notice that the set builders noted this panel as 2G which presumably is the second display on what they considered the G station (second looking from the back side of the set from right to left; not from the bridge side). The rear light panel also has this same designation therefore making it easy to match them up if they had to be removed (during construction, wiring or changing out the bulbs).
The lights themselves were small incandescent lights that screwed into porcelain bases. The lights on this panel are G.E. 115-125v 25W which were 1 3/4" in length and about a half inch at the base. They were mounted onto a piece of 1/4" plywood which was screwed into the two blocks on the back of the wood box by one screw on each side. This made it easy to unscrew the back of the display and change lights as needed; it only took the removal of the two screws to have access to the bulbs. The porcelain bases were not actually attached at all to the plywood back; they were just held in place by the wiring. The pattern of the lights matched the sheet metal grid and in the open spaces the lights were just evenly spaced to create an even area of illumination.
All of the wiring for the lighting was run through the backing plywood and again held the light base in place. In order to calculate the total load that all of the displays at each station would pull the panels had the wattage written on the back along with an indication for which lights would blink. Also noted on the back was the wattage for the bulbs for that panel. The light side of the panel was painted black but the back was just raw plywood. These two photos show the mess of wiring that was the back of these panels.
Besides Engineering-7, Environmental-4, Comm-6 and the display that could be either Science-7 or Nav-3 I am unaware of any other existing panels that have been examined. Here in this photo from the PIH Justman auction you can see the same construction used in the above panel and also you can see the melted white plastic that was used to diffuse the light. This would lead us to think that the display is probably Science-7 since the lighting would have been on screen for much longer (which means the display would have been lit for much longer thus accumulating more heat over the run of the series) than the rarely seen Nav-3 display.
Here is a good image from "The Man Trap" showing the gap between the front glass and the graphic layer
You can see in the above photo the gap between the light box that contained the graphic and the surface glass.