Hi bz,

re:
> I wanted to join all the sections into a solid so that I could run it through a program like
> SolidWorks to get a weight and center of mass for balancing.

You might be able to get that same result while just keeping each piece as its own separate solid. At least weight I'd think would be supported in SolidWorks by it adding together the weights of all the separate pieces.

- Michael