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I want to create a model of an octagonal tower which is part of the roof of a building which has exterior framing timber on the edges and can think of only one way which would be to create another octagonal cylinder slightly larger and then use the boolean modifier to remove all the bits not required but surely there is an easier way. I have included the basic blender model (tower) and an image of the real tower to illustrate what I mean.

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Select the edges, bevel, set the Shape value to 1 in the Operator Box:

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Then AltE to Extrude Faces Along Normals, enable the Offset Even option:

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To select all the faces of the same size, select the faces you want then use ShiftG > Area:

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks that worked great although I didn't end up with any 'thickness' to the newly created faces but that doesn't matter too much as my model will never be viewed close enough to notice. But is there an easy way to select all the newly created faces (the exterior timber framing in edit mode) to assign a particular material or just apply to every face and then pick out just the faces in between for a different material (only 16 of them)? $\endgroup$
    – John Arnold
    May 3 at 8:36
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    $\begingroup$ If you select one of the bgi faces and press Shift G > Area it will select all the other faces of the same dimension, is it what you want? $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    May 3 at 8:38
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks moonboots. I guess I will need to do this a few times as not all the new faces created will have the same dimensions. Anyway a lot easier than manually selecting every new face. $\endgroup$
    – John Arnold
    May 3 at 8:59
  • $\begingroup$ It's a good idea to try and think ahead about materials if you can! After you had extruded the faces and while they were still selected you could have hit Ctrl-Numpad+ to also select the edges of the frame. Then add a material for your frame and assign it to the selected faces. $\endgroup$
    – John Eason
    May 3 at 9:03
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    $\begingroup$ @John Arnold you don't have to do it several times, select all the faces you want then press Shift G, see my edit $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    May 3 at 9:22

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