Typography - 3 - Tracing a complex shape

Yesterday I was reacquainted with the pen tool in illustrator for the purpose of tracing over a shape to make a vector object. It was actually pretty painless compared to some of my first experiences with Illustrator. I successfully created the outside gear shape, teeth and all, and then I was able to use the pathfinder to exclude the center of the shape. The only problem I ran into was one time where for some reason the space in between two teeth was filled in for some reason, but it wasn't too hard to take care of and then move my points back into place.