offsetting a rectangle or other shape

[Anonymous]

Looks like the offset command will work with a circle but not a center point rectangle? Am I wrong? 

How about another shape made up of arcs that have all been connected? For example, say I had a file with a handle to a folding knife and I wanted to offset the liners with a different material overtop of it, but just smaller. Like this pic. Is that possible? 

[HughesTooling]

Have you got chain edge enabled? I have no problem offsetting a centre point rectangle.

Mark

[HughesTooling]

Your second questions sounds like you're asking about offsetting surfaces. Offsetting surfaces can be tricky if you have any tight corners but should work if you have a good surface\surfaces with nice clean curvature.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Yeah I've tried it with both... I should have been more clear. I can offset the rectangle if it's not finalized and the dimensions are undefined, but if it's finalized (black) and I want to create a new sketch that is offset from the face of a previous sketch, it doesn't work for me. 

[HughesTooling]

Still should be no problem. No sure why you have a problem with this.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Mike! Found out what I did wrong... I was trying to offset the rectangle while not editing the rectangle sketch, I was trying to do it from a new sketch. So my question is: if I wanted to make a new sketch with an offset rectangle from the original one, is there a way to do this? 

[HughesTooling]

In preferences there are setting for auto project, personally I turn them off. I think what you saw was autoproject edges on reference. If you turn that setting off and Autoproject geometry on sketch plane then if you create a sketch on the face of a box, press P for project, select the face then OK out of the project command you should have a rectangle you can offset.

Mark