thanks guys :)

i just noticed that there were duplicate lines on top of each other from duplicating a hex next to itself and joining did not meld the duplicate lines into one entity.

how can i do what you did to make it work, for future reference?

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btw - i'm attempting to set this up for the process described in http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=817.4