Hi David this is a great method.

JTB check out the images that David attached - for the circular array he picked the center point of the profile as the center of the array. Normally this would replicate a bunch of objects on top of each other, but with the addition of a vertical step, it will stack the copies up in a column shape. Very good idea David!

The other note that I'd make is that you'll probably need a fair number of sections for the loft, each section will probably need to be rotated by only a somewhat small amount from the previous one.

This is because there is an "anti-twist" mechanism built into loft where it tries to minimize twist between 2 sections. So if you have a symmetrical shape that is rotated in say a larger 90 degree increment from each other, twist minimization would probably produce a totally straight loft. So you need a smaller increment between each section so that MoI won't be able to find a just straight connection between the profiles.

Does that make sense?

- Michael