How do I skew a face from the exact center?

spoxjox

Newbie here looking for help. In situations like these, it seems that I either provide way too little information or way too much, so I'll try to obviate that tendency this time.

SHORT VERSION
I want to use the Rotate tool to skew a face by grabbing it at its exact center and sighting along an axis, but when I try to use guidelines to find the exact center, I can only ever grab the stupid guidelines, not the underlying face. How can I do what I'm trying to do?

LONGER VERSION
I can use the Rotate tool to skew a 3-D object by selecting a face and rotating it. Consider (for example) a rectangular solid, formed by creating a rectangle and pulling it into a solid. Choose any face of that rectangular solid. I want to skew the rectangle by rotating this face.

In order to make the rotation perfectly symmetrical, I want to initially grab that face at its exact center. (It appears the Rotate tool will always rotate around the point you first click.) So I need to find the exact center of the face.

No problem; I can use guidelines. So I establish a guideline right down the vertical center of the face and another across the horizontal center. X marks the spot! I'm golden!

Oh, wait. No, I'm not. When I select the Rotate tool and then center it at the intersection of my guidelines, I am not on the face of the solid, with the dotted surface telling me I'm selecting it. Instead, when I snap to the intersection, the Rotate tool selects the guidelines themselves, rather than the underlying face!

Okay, that deeply sucks. I can't seem to figure out how to click on the underlying face rather than the stupid guidelines, and there is no obvious documentation (that I have found) telling me how to do this. So I decide that, instead, I'll just center that face at the origin and use the axes instead. Oops, same problem; the Rotate tool wants to select the axis or axes rather than the underlying face.

I realize this is a total n00b problem, and the solution has to be plainly obvious. Anyone care to point it out to me? Thanks in advance.

Box

Short version reply.

You don't need the guide lines, use inferencing.
Select the face, select the rotate tool, hover over the edge of the face until it says midpoint, then hover over other edge at right angle till it says midpoint, move tool to centre of face and both the midpoints will highlight. Click and you are at the midpoint of the face.

Edit.Simple vid
[screenr:olr3blbf]PGsH[/screenr:olr3blbf]

Dave R

Even if you do use guidelines to identify the center, preselecting the face before getting the Rotate tool will help.

ely862me

Exactly ! It is a bit hard at first to snap the both midpoints intersect in the middle but the you'll get used to it.

And regarding your guidelines, you just need to select the face before picking the rotate tool and then you can rotate the face without worrying about rotating the guidelines.

Well.. you said it first !