Distributing cylinders along spline

[neokyubi]

Hi guys and girls,
I'm trying to model the stitching of a piece of leather.
I modelled a small bent cylinder which i want to distribute along a curved closed spline. I tried the deformpath modifier, and it has pretty good results, except that it deforms my path (its too small and doesnt fit) the original leather pieces.
How would you go on scaling it right? I need it to be 100% accurate and not scaling by eye. I tried to move the pivots and then scale the spline afterwards.
It doesnt work since the pathdeform object is weirdly rotated. help pls

Thanks in advance

since its a stitched seam, those cylinders need to have equal distance to each other.

[YEAROFTHEOX]

If you're using max, you could try the spacing tool (Shift-i).

[L3XICON]

the easiest way might be to simply give the spline some form (rendering rollout - render in viewport / renderer) you can adjust thickness and sides etc. and you can convert to editable poly for further treatment with push modifer etc this is how I have done leather stitching in the past.

otherwise. as YEAROFTHEOX is spot on, spacing tool should do the trick

good luck

[neokyubi]

Thanks for those hints guys. I tried the spacing tool, since that method is more the direction i needed it, however is there a way to rotate the spaced objects in the tangent direction of the spline at the place they are positioned? (hopefully not manually)

edit:
ah stupid me.. i overlooked the "follow" checkbox. =)