hi, thanks for the reply. tea, it's sort of strange, I can usually map sort of OK but I haven't a clue what's happening here. I followed Mike's tut (texturing a door in photoshop) and his UV map looks like the planks of a door such as the one here. Nurbs by the way. if you can help with this problem it would be great. It's not catastrophic but there is something very fundamental happening here i do not understand.