Tricks o' Me Trade ol' boy, Tricks o' Me Trade!

Tricks of Me Trade, Boy-O.  Tricks of Me Trade!
Jack Dalton in MacGyver (Jack of Lies)

When working in an assembly, one of the tricky things can be trying to pick a narrow edge when using the mate constraint.  Murphy's Law grabs you by the lapels, then shakes vigorously like a bartender shaking a martini. 

You can pick every edge, sketch line, and point, but never get the face you want.  If you're on your forth cup of coffee, you probably can't even hold your hand still enough to use the "Select Other" tool.

So now what?  You could zoom in to the part so closely you feel like your reenacting the "extreme closeup" scene from Wayne's World.  But that can get a little irritating.

You could hold your breath, grab your mouse hand by the wrist, and stick your tongue out the corner of your mouth until you can steady yourself enough to make the pick.  But that just looks silly.

Or you could learn this trick I picked up from somewhere in my past.  I wish I could tell you who showed it too me, but that recollection has fallen to the fog of Autodesk Universities past.

What's the trick?  Instead of using Mate, choose Flush first.  Why?  Flush sees ONLY faces.  It doesn't pick edges, points, or sketches.  Only faces.  Once you have your faces selected, switch back to Mate.



It's like it's own filter!

Using Flush to filter faces.  Try saying that 5 times fast!

Give it a try.  It's pretty quick, simple, elegant, and a lot easier than you might think.

Plus, you don't have to cut back on your coffee intake!

And here's a quick video version!