Hi Steve,

> I have looked at very many ways, but do find it "hit or miss",..
> (sometimes it will/ sometimes it wont)

If you have the situation where boolean union is not working and you have pieces that are touching each other edge-to-edge, then that is the situation where you can switch to Edit/Separate, discard the common pieces, and then use Edit/Join to glue together the pieces into a solid.

That method should not have any hit-or-miss about it. But the edges have to be matched up with each other for that way to work.

- Michael