my problem doesnt really have anything to do with the weight of an vertex on a bone. exactly what i was trying to do was be able to load up one entity (lets call it belly) and then load up a different entity (lets call it chest) and then make the vertices along the lower part of the chest be attached to the belly's bone. that way they can act as the same object but i can call for either the chest or the belly to animate at different times.