Greg Jein’s amazing recreation of K7 for Tribble-ations, on the motion control stage at Image G. In the background you can see Gary checking his lighting. That’s me in the FG wearing the art department T-shirt with the molecular structure of caffeine on the front.
The biggest surprise to Mike and I, was the “hopper” on the back of the main saucer. It was completely out of view in the TOS episode.
In an earlier blog entry, I described how Gary Hutzel called Mike Okuda and I to lend a hand setting up to shoot Greg’s miniatures. Gary felt that they could use some additional weathering and panel lines. Naturally we were totally stoked.
+
(Above) Another revelation when dissecting the design, were the steps on the saucers. the model was built from pieces donated by, and Mike correct me if I’m wrong… Northrop? I’m wrong! It was Douglas! Thank you, Mike! They we part of a Douglas conceptual model, and were given to Roddenberry as a gift. I suspect the idea was that the sections were a wedge which deployed out into the saucer configuration.
(Below) Original Douglas painting depicting the K7 saucers as originally intended.
(Above) We always suspected that the main tower had K-7 stencilled on, but it could not be proven by what we saw in the original episode. Apparently the nomenclature was camoflaged due to the pattern of the windows. This was proven as soon as Gary fired the station window lighting up.
The story goes, that Roddenberry gave the pieces of the Northrop model to Art Director Matt Jefferies, who turned them over to model maker Richard Datin. Datin built the original TOS Enterprise.
(Below) The pictures everyone has been waiting for. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get perfect depth of field, but between these three shots you can mostly make it out. In the bay, a starfleet shuttlecraft, and Cyrano Jones spaceship dubbed the “Spacematic” by Greg Jein and his crew. the sign on the back wall says: Welcome to K-7… Now Go Home!
(Above) Plus a nice side view of Cyrano’s ship. Who loves ‘ya baby?
(Above) K-7 in the big Image G toy room, after completion of motion control work.
(Below) My favorite shot taken of me weathering the station and dodging the motion control camera. That’s Anthony standing by.
Hey Mike… thanks for hiring me!
I just wet myself, Awesome pics Doug
I need to start wearing a bib when i come to your website Doug, I keep drooling.
WOW that must have been the greatest…
I had a model [AMT made it i think] of the K7 when I was young and remember it had this weird blank spot where the hopper appears in your photo. i always wondered about that, and figured there had to be more to it. GJ’s model is gorgeous. you must have been on cloud 9!
Aurore.
Man that is Sweeeet. Thanks Doug! I love TOS style!!
Awesome pix, thanks Doug.
Man O’ man, these are great. You guys (Doug and Mike) are the best! I just feel so lucky to be able to see these behind-the-scenes photos. If there was access to these from the TOS era I would have never grown-up and got a career. Thank you for doing these (especially now that I’m semi-retired, lol) great photos and behind the scenes insight. It’s truely a privledge for me to be able to catch a glimps of what I SHOULD’VE done with myself, lol. In all seriousness I appreciate you guys taking the time and effort to let some of us share in the absolue coolness that you created!
Doug. You’re wearing my favorite t-shirt! I picked up a couple of the shirts and gave one to you because of our love of coffee. The high energy drink flowed freely in the art department, especially when Rod was around. I remember Rick Berman stopping a production meeting and asking me what was on my shirt? I told him that it was my drug of choice…. caffeine!
Cool stuff! I believe the original station model pieces came from Douglas Aircraft. The “stepping” was because each pod was designed to be folded up and launched on a single booster. Once each pod had gotten into orbit, it would unfurl and become the pods that we see. Richard Datin, the modelmaker who built the original Enterprise miniature, modified the Douglas (not Drexler) pods to become K7.
O-M-G…
Well it appears the Drex-Tractor-Beam has been set to full-on this morning… you’re killin’ me dude, LOL. In a good way eh.
These are just jaw-dropping prac-geek yummy ticklin’ tummy goodness. :9
Nice shirt too. No more coffee for me though, makes me phase out of reality. Coke~Cola & Toll-House cookies fill that void now though. :9
And Cyrano’s ship, awesome mini-miniatures! Could you even pull perfect DOF at that small’a scale?
Nice weathering too. Good restraint. I catch a some flak about me E, saying it’s too clean, but my thoughts are (and esp. at that scale), often real realism is all about subtlety, again. esp. at that scale.
Thanks again dude, for the pics and K-7 back-info. It’s origins were new to me.
Ah look, Denise Okuda! Hi Denise. Love your work as well eh.
PLL,
deg
Cool stuff! I believe the original station model pieces came from Douglas Aircraft. The “stepping” was because each pod was designed to be folded up and launched on a single booster. Once each pod had gotten into orbit, it would unfurl and become the pods that we see. Richard Datin, the modelmaker who built the original Enterprise miniature, modified the Douglas (not Drexler) pods to become K7.
Thanks Mike, for the further back-info. IMO, it’s so cool that Trek blends over into real space, and vice-versa, lending back and forth to each other. Now days, chicken or the egg eh.
LLP,
deg
Just Love! Cyrano Jones ship, Thanks mr Drexler for that! Another question: in the Image G toy room pic, is that a ship to the left above the mirande-class escapepod? And if so, what?
Hi Freak! Can’t place it! I’ll ask around! – Doug
Fabulous pics!
Thanks for posting them. I love the look of those classic TOS stations – the Vanguard-style station looked fabulous too (although the remastered original series hasn’t been on TV over here in the UK yet as far as I’m aware, so I’ve only seen the pics).
Re the K7 again, I like the unfolding pods idea, very clever. Any idea what the ‘hopper’ section was for?
Cheers!
Well In that same pic I can see the Klingon High Command Base Ty-go-kor (Or however you spell it… lol)
Man what I wouldn’t give to see the things you have seen…
Trials and Tribble-ations, one of my favorite DS9 episodes. Thanks for posting these images and supplying further production info.
Doug,
My productivity had been on the verge of dangerously spiraling out of control, ready to crash and smolder for weeks on end before any hope of salvage deemed suitable.
Posts like these, in fact your whole blog for that matter, have made said productivity a heaping, twisted pile of wreckage in my cubicle….
…and I LOVE it!!
Doug, your whole blog is a great perspective and take on Trek…especially since you were there! I’ve been checking your blog everyday for the past two weeks now, giddy like a schoolgirl on speed. The model shots, the CGI insights, and the set photos are amazing…what I find most appreciative though, is reading about all of the antics and backstories you provide, and seeing how people like Mike & Denise Okuda contribute and add their own comments just makes it that much more awesome.
Looking forward to more great entries, Doug! Thanks for this wonderful insight! (Ok, I’m done getting all semi-sentimental…)
Rick! Rick! Do you read me? Pull up, lad! Pull up!
Operations! Stand by to send in the D-FIT team!
Rick! We are standing by with a Drex Files Intervention Team! Do you copy!? Do you copy!?
Seriously though, Rick… that kind of talk is just dangerous… you are stoking a fire which is already burning out of control, and I can’t stop it!
Look out you people! No breaks!
THANK YOU!
- Doug
Oh good, I’m not alone, shwoo.
We are standing by with a Drex Files Intervention Team!
Do me a solid and have ‘em swing by hear after they’re done with Rick.
Wait, I can do this. I’m on it.
Routing deg fascination EPS conduits back into the inspiration manifold to charge the discipline injectors.
LLP.
deg
This page has more images of the Douglas collapsible space station concept (and many other fantastic models). Especially this image looks like it could be exactly the models apparently obtained by Roddenberry, and turned into K-7 by Richard Datin, as also mentioned by his son on his page. At least, they seem to be the right relative size. What a wonderful cost-saving way to arrive at a very interesting looking station.
I wonder whatever happened to the model.
Great stuff, Harry! Well done!
Arr, great photos. And that painting is really cool, would have made for a quite epic shot on the show.
Great stuff. I love seeing things like this.
Just eyeing the shot of the station shuttle bay, it strikes me that Cyrano Jones’ ship bears a resemblance to the (2001: ASO) Moon Bus model I built many years ago, now long-departed (I think it was the Aurora kit.) Was that at all deliberate?
These pictures are great! Thanks so much for sharing them! I really love the detail in the minatures in the bay. It’s too bad that we didn’t get to see it up close on screen because it really is a fantastic addition to the model!
I am just giddy about the shuttle bay pictures! After reading about this model in the DS-9 Companion (one of the best ever produced, by the way), I have been itching to see what it looked like up close. For me, it is always about the details. I am constantly fascinated by what most would think is absolutely nothing.
And I ashamed to admit that I am hopelessly jealous. Being able to stand that close to these icons of sci-fi is a privilege I would sell my own mother for. However, as my luck runs, I would be the yahoo that broke something off of one of them so it is probably best that I wasn’t to close.
Wow the more I visit this site, the more cool things I see.
Love it. In all the years I have searched, this blog site is on the way to providing more real reference material on ship/station models than any other source I have seen. I can’t say thanks enough.
Holeee crap! Just when I wonder what the next piece of Trek history you’re going to pull out will be, you come up with THIS! This is some truly amazing stuff. I’m with Rick on this. This is mind-blowingly fantastic!!
Me likey big-time.
I’m wondering: Did the CG-K-7 in “The trouble with Tribbles-remastered” also contain a shuttle and the Spacematic or some other small craft?
Wow, I’m very jealous!! You guys get to do very cool stuff.
Trials and Tribble-ations is on of my favourite DS9 episodes also, particulary as I got to see Jadzia in a mini-shirt!! Oh behave!!
Here’s a starship modeling nerd question for all the folks who got to work to the K-7 Model for DS9, any idea of the scale of this beauty? It would save me gesti-mating from the photos, which i’ll probably do anyway.
Thanks in advance, and Doug, keep that fire burning!
Hey, is that the Saratoga escape pod I see in the background? You know I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good photo of the rear of that miniature. *nudge nudge*
“Another question: in the Image G toy room pic, is that a ship to the left above the mirande-class escapepod? And if so, what?”
Starship Freak, that model was actually sold at the eBay auction. I saved all the photos of it, if you want to see them.
Hi Mark,
Absolutely I would! Thanks!
My email is: pina_sov@hotmail.com
Really love the shuttle bay shots. Thanks so much.
I just can’t keep up with this blog, Mr. D. I know I’m done for if I start perusing it at my day job, after having seen what stuff like Twitter is doing to my productivity. But even if I did that, I still couldn’t keep up with all the wonderful images and stories you’re posting here. Not if I had any intention of expressing specific appreciation for them, anyway. This blog is a dietary staple.
K-7 might have been my first indication in TOS that there was indeed a visible organization operating behind the scenes which had in fact made Kirk’s mission possible. K-7’s a brief glimpse at the rest of Starfleet’s infrastructure, operating throughout Federation space, and looking consistent throughout, thanks to 1950s/1960s aerospace design.
Greg Jein is the missing man in too many stories, I think. I’d love to see this blog focus upon him and his career for a post or two.
Dear Mr. Drexler,
My name is Marchel van Leeuwen and i really love your work for Star Trek. I’m a moderator at the SpaceStation K7 forums. Our forum was originally setup as support for skins and mods for Raven’s Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force but we have evolved into a place to talk about Star Trek The Original Series. Our members come from all over the world.
We saw your blog with photos of the K7 Station as it was recreated for the DS9 episode “Trials and Tribble-ations”. We have a section on our forum that’s called The Guardian Of Forever that contains rare images from The Original Series. We would be very honoured if you allowed us to showcase your photos of the station and the Enterprise or any other Trek related artwork. Of course we will credit everything with a link to your blog or however you see fit.
Kind greetings and hope to hear from you soon,
Marchel van Leeuwen a.k.a. V’ger
Station historian at the SpaceStation K7 forums
Hi Marchel! Thank you for the kind words! Feel free to use the images, a link to the drex files along with them would be cool! – Doug