Thanks for that clarification Michael

My concern about the number of points is rooted in some vague belief that the file which is to be input to the prototyping machine shouldn't be unnecessarily large. For all I know it may not be an issue!

Also, I'm thinking that if I later perform some boolean operations, a smaller number of points would be better.

The tapered extrude will be very useful.

There are so many jewels hidden in this forum...