Hi Brent, There are a couple of issues here: 1) Use the spline modeler a little more thoroughly. The image at the left is a spline model from a simple circle. Doing it this way prevents the need to use boolean subtraction create the the shape. For the lighter's coils I'd actually create a simple cylinder and place it within the lighter 'spline' shape and shade it like it's glowing 2) It's easier to shade spline objects than a vertex object within Carrara (controling independent shaders on a single object that is). The image on the right shows how you can add specific shaders to specific areas of a spline object. You can control shape, placement etc. much more accuratly than on a vertex object. The workaround for a vertex object is to use UV Mapper. UV Mapper is an outstanding tool but adds a couple of extra steps that you don't need with simple mechanical objects like the Lighter. Hope this helps! Mark