SinnerSaint,

The Slice modifier is no good for making spiral edge loops through a mesh.  Think about it... it's a slicing PLANE.  It's great for making straight cuts in any direction through a mesh, and for quickly adding edge loops in any direction on a mesh, but it's still just a "straight line", or loop; not a spiral.  The image below illustrates what I mean.  I used not just one, but two slice modifiers on a tube, trying to get the same effect as extruding a helix.  It's a geometric impossibility:

As you can clearly see, all the slice modifier will do is create straight loops through the mesh. In this case, it could only create straight, concentric edge loops diagonally through the tube. In order to approximate the way an actual paper towel cardboard looks in real life, you need one continuous spiral edge loop running down the entire tube, without breaks. Next time you finish a roll of paper towels, you could examine the cardboard insert, and you will see what I mean. If you have ever ripped one of those apart, you'd actually end up with a piece of cardboard that is in the shape of a spiral, and simply glued together at the seams. That's exactly what extruding a spiral spline, and welding the verts will do, in a virtual scenerio. :)

Thanks for the input though man, it was worth a look anyway.  I sometimes forget about the slice modifier, and for many things aside from this, it would definitely come in handy.

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