Thanks, ctbram
and thanks for the quick points..
got another small question is it possible to change the multiplicity of isoparms once it is set...
I do not believe you can in Maya. You can try to rebuild the entire surface but I am not sure if that will reset the mult. of all the iso's.
One of the issues with nurbs and maya is from what I can see nurbs support was cobbled in from a more sophisticated package - most likely alias studiotools - but it's an incomplete implementation. So some tools and settings are not very useful. I rarely if ever play with muliplicity. I don't ever build degree 5 or 7 curves or surfaces. Without proper surface and curve evaluation tools (which maya lacks) they are useless. I am guessing they were left in to support importing from more robust surface modeling apps.
"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675