Cynthia, Depends on the geometry, but probably not. If you can anticipate this situation ahead of time -- not always possible or practical -- then you can create the portion to be shelled, shell it, then add the handle. Otherwise what you probably need to do is offset selected outside surfaces of the model, and use the offset quilt to cut away the unwanted material using Solidify. You may have to do a little more to get exactly what you want. For instance, you may have to create some kind of terminating surface in the vicinity of the handle and merge it with the offset quilt before using it to cut the model. David