Confused about operations affecting multiple copies of components

[Anonymous]

I'm pretty new to Fusion 360. I am designing mouthpieces for wind instruments. What I want to do is make multiple copies of a partial design, and then try different cuts on them to see what shape of cut works best. When I make copies of a component, either with move/copy or cut & paste, and then make a cut on one of the resulting components, the cut is applied to all of the copies. This is the opposite of what I'm trying to do. How do I perform  different operations on copies of a component without affecting all copies?

[jeff_strater · Accepted solution]

Try "Paste New" instead of "Paste".  This creates an entirely independent copy of the component.  However, a word of warning:  This is truly independent.  There is no link to the original, so you will not be able to apply some changes to all copies, but have other changes only apply to some.  If that's OK, then this should work for you.

[HughesTooling]

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@Anonymous wrote:

 What I want to do is make multiple copies of a partial design, and then try different cuts on them to see what shape of cut works best.

What I'd do is create a component as your base then use boundary fill to create a derived copy as a new components. Make sure the top component is active when you create the copy and boundary fill is set to New Component. 

Like this edits to the base component will update the copies but edits to the copies will only affect the copy. Note, to add features to the base part you'll need to roll the timeline back before the Boundary Fill features.

Another option might be the Derive feature and have the base part in it's own design. One disadvantage with this method would be editing the base design would take more time.

You'd just create the base part and save the design then start a new design and derive that part.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, "truly independent" is what I want at this stage.