Hi Michael, yes, those are just seperate objects I'll recreate the two outer pieces to be one part and then boolean add that to the sphere, that'll help me stop seeing the cracks on the edges in my renders (earlier I was just sinking them into the sphere's surface a little bit...)

The normals aren't a biggie though (keeping in mind your suggestion about open surfaces) - it was the cracks that had me head scratching but that appears to be a Lightwave issue. (Lawd I don't want to buy Cinema 4D after all I've invested in LW (books, plugins etc.) nor do I want to buy Modo!)

Just trying to find a workflow for myself here...

-Will