So building my first instrument...

I've searched and searched but in all of SL there is no decent harmonica/holder model that I can find. So I decided to head to a sandbox and build one myself. I used to model in Maya and 3dStudio Max, so I'm somewhat familiar with the concept of constructing objects out of primitives... To get more acquainted with the SL building techniques, I watched the "how to build a chair" tutorial. Got me right up to speed.

But I have a problem- to build my harmonica, I started very large. Large indeed. I finished and began texturing, and started to shrink the model down to actual size- but it won't let me shrink it any further... the thing is half the size of my avatar! This simply can't work. Also, sometimes after shrinking the object (a bunch of linked prims), one prim will pop back into original size, then sometimes the rest follow.. not sure if it's lag or if I'm doing something wrong.

Is there a way to get my object smaller, or do I have to restart and rebuild the thing out of smaller individual prims?

Really appreciate the help, I'm loving SL more and more everyday.

On first guess, I would say that when you are shrinking your harmonica down, one of the prims is getting small enough that one of its basic dimensions, X, Y, or Z sizes, is bumping against the .01 meter minimum, and won't shrink any further. If you are using prims to model the 'airways' it is likely one of those prims. There are methods to make really small pieces, but they involve cutting and hollowing a larger prim, which the stretching (shrinking) function won't do for you.

An option would be to build that piece solid, leaving out the airways, then making a texture that would depict the holes and apply it to the front and back faces.

Edit: On thinking about it, and remembering the Höhner harmonicas I used to see at the 5-and-dime (age verification check) the thickness of the whole thing is likely to try and go below .01 meter. There is a 'sticky' thread at the top of this forum on "How To: Make Tiny Prims" that will be beneficial reading.

I have also gotten the pop back to large on one prim when shrinking a linked set. It's a bug. You aren't doing anything wrong. It helps to move your mouse slowly when you are shrinking a linked set.

I found that unlinking the selection, selecting them all and resizing and then link once u have the right size works for me....

Basically, you screwed up and have to re-build it. You can't build at a large scale and count on being able to shrink it down. You need to build at the scale you want, using your camera controls to help you see what you're doing.