CompuServe Messages

Two questions that possibly someone can help me with: First, I have a complicated object. It is a pump housing, kinda looks like an odd shaped open ended tube with lots of holes in it. I want the outside to be red paint and the inside to be shiny metallic. I spent about an hour picking the outside faces and separating them into a new object with the red paint attribute. It works fine but is really time consuming. Q – Can Imagine automatically determine the outside faces and apply an attribute to them??? Second, I'm trying to make Screw Threads on a tube. I've tried most the textures as well as the Wave command in the detail editor. Can't get it to look quite right. Any suggestions??? Michael B.