Lathe along path...?

[bulldog3d]

I'm sure I'm being a dumb-*** here, but I'm trying to make a birthday candle in the shape of the letter S. I'm aiming for the type of candle that has two 'twists' of wax (one blue, one white). I'm thinking that I could do this by lathing two discs along a path with offset applied, but don't seem to be able to figure out how to go about this. Any pointers?

[Dodgy]

Rail extrude is what you're looking for:)

[bulldog3d]

rail extrude works along the path - i need the wax to wrap around the path in a spiral. i guess I could model the spiral wax path and then rail extrude, but i was sorta looking for a lathe/extrude option...?

[Dodgy]

Second thoughts, lathe it out, with offset to get your twirl, then use a path conform deformer in Layout to snake it along ;)

[Dodgy]

OR use two rails and twist them, and then do a rail extude (multiple). The two rails should have their start points at the edges of the circles...

[riki]

Here's a tut on making Braids, not sure if it can give you any ideas??

http://www.hades-studios.com/braidstutorial

[Dangerman]

How about Magic Bevel with twist turned on?
It has so many controls and options that I'm sure you can get what you want.
You can even whip out your twisted path, and then edit the path afterwards to get it just right.

[bulldog3d]

thanks to all for the help. i didn't even know about the Magic bevel tool, so that will need some exploring : )

in case anyone's following this thread, i just got this elegant solution in from my mate Dug that's worked very well:

"You should be able to do that with two high resolution rods that are
adjacent to each other. Then just use the twist tool (or rotate with a
falloff) to get the twist."