This is a possible answer to a deleted question about fitting the rivets of the simple plane from the
https://cgcookie.com/courses/introduction-to-hard-surface-modeling
around a non-circular nose cone.
You can use Instancing on the Faces of a helper Cylinder that is Shrinkwrapped to the nose:
You can adjust the Offset in the Modifier.
(And disable Show Instancer of course.)
Thanks. Yeah, I did end up did using the instances on the faces and found that the faces still had the origin of the main piece from where I duplicated them from and needed to move the rivet to the faces new origin and it all snapped into place. Pretty slick method shown in the course.
I actually posted the solution I first thought I got to work but it actually didn't work all around and ended up using the method for the cockpit rivets (as you correctly point out) and was going to post that solution but decided no one has probably seen the post and I have been posting and reposting a lot lately so I deleted the whole thing and hopefully didn't bother anyone with the back ad forth, lol. I posted the final pics that worked on My Projects and now have a date trying to model a Husky.
Thanks for the reply.