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Quick, hit undo, then let's peek at the bird's eye view. Here's the spline I just lathed. Notice that it is nowhere near the Y axis, and it's not even vertical! No wonder the lathe looked so weird.
I asure you, that is the same spline you saw in slides 1 and 2. Go back and look at them if you want. See what I mean? In the front view, you simply cannot tell how near or far a CP or a spline is on the Z axis. It just looks flat.
So how DID it get like that? By drawing splines in bird's eye view. This is a good thing, but like many good things (love, money, chocolate, hydrogen plasma) it can be dangerous if misused. You'll notice I didn't go straight from lathing the candle to trying to lathe the wick. I adjusted the top of the candle, from various angles in bird's eye. Then I drew the spline in bird's eye, from a perspective similar to front view, but without the constraints. I didn't realize that neither the start nor the end of my short spline lay in the X-Y plane. When I switched to front view, there was no visual indication of the actual position of my spline in 3D space.
If you draw in bird's eye view (and you should), be sure to rotate around and look at your splines from more than one angle. Check out the front, side, and top views. Don't assume you know where your splines are. After a while, it will become more natural, and you will know where they are. Even then, it's good to double-check before lathing.
