Simply Maya User Community - Problem with detaching curves.

Hello everyone, I am in the process of learning maya and i have run across a problem relating to the detach curves function as i was going through the project in my book. I have serched on the forums here and in the maya help and couldnt find what was wrong so im making this post in the hopes that soemone might have an idea what could be wrong or someone who had a similar problem might be able to help.

I am trying to model an axe with NURBS so i created a curve for the axe-head. I ended the cuve close to the first point and then had maya automatically close the curve, Since i want the cutting edge of the axe to come to a sharp point i will have to bend the curve a bit so i cannot create a planar surface. I was going to create a boundary surface by cutting the curve i made for the axe head into 4 seperate curves (top, bottom, 2 sides).

http://xs101.xs.to/xs101/06235/axe_before.jpg

I set the four points where i want maya to cut the curves, but when i go to Surfaves > Detach Curves, this is my result

http://xs101.xs.to/xs101/06235/axe_after.jpg

i looked in the outliner and it did in fact make four curves, however the fourth curve is extremely small.

http://xs101.xs.to/xs101/06235/outliner.jpg

ive tried numerous different things and i keep running into the same problem with detach curves. It seems to always delete a portion of my curve! Im totally stumped and would really appreciate any help or ideas on what my problem could be. I apologize if it is something blatantly obvious!

thanks for you time,
-matthew