I'm (just like 75% of the people here) new to Maya 6 and pretty nwe to 3D, so wait for 1000 other questions in the next months... but now I have a doubt, and I was hopping to get some advice.

I'm using Maya to design some Furniture and metallic products, and I wanted to know if there's any way to asign a specific thickness to what should be, for example, a pretty curved wooden board, or car parts.

Can this be done, or should I just design both sides of the board and place them at the required distance the one from the next one?

another newbie question, if I'm designing a simetrical body -chair, car, face- how do you make the reflected surface as a linked part of the original side? I mean, how do you do, so that the changes on one side are reflected on the next one?

Thanks, y'all