New to iterations in model builder

[Anonymous User]

Original User: lejewell

I have 137 polygons that I need to buffer but I don't want the original polygon area. So basically I want to do an "outside buffer". There is a buffer type that is supposed to do this but it's not working properly so I'm trying to use iterations to select each polygon, make a buffer and then erase the polygon out of the buffer.
It seems to iterate through the polygons but it gives me an error each time saying the input is invalid for the erase tool.
I'm sure the answer is simple but this is my first time trying to use iterations in model builder.
Thanks for any help anybody can give me.
Lorna

[Anonymous User]

Original User: Hornbydd

Lorna,

I'm just guessing here as I'm not at a v10 machine but I think the "clue is in the answer", I'm guessing the erase tool cannot handle the output of the feature iterator. It's probably a bug. What you could try is to put in an extra step where you export the selected polygon to it's own FeatureClass. Use the tool Select and if you want it to run as fast as possible sent it to an In_Memory workspace (read the help if you don't know what that is). This then feeds into your erase tool. Just an idea?

Duncan