How to create copy of component that can be edited separate from the original?

[John_C_Hansen]

 First I want to thank everyone for their  Help and suggestions they have made on this project.

In the attached file you will see the left and right leg missing their shoes. Out in front of the desk is the original shoe that was made for the center leg. Now I would like to make a copy of that original center leg shoe that is independent so that I can modify it with a push pull to make it longer on one side and then use it for both the left and right leg.

I thought I would be successful by doing a copy/paste new, but I'm having difficulty making that work.

 how can I create a copy of this shoe that I can modify without it affecting the original?

[TrippyLighting]

Copy/Paste-New is one way to do this. But it has limitations and how well it works depends on how you designed that component.

Configurations can achieve a lot depending on what changes you want to make to the new components. However, they are only available with a paid subscription.

This gets more complex when you want to create an independent copy of a component group (assembly). Often, several parts are identical, and only a few parts in the copies are different.

There's really no one workflow that covers all situations.

Based on previous threads I am assuming you want to create three instances of the table leg assembly, where most components in that assembly are the same and only a couple are slightly different. Is that true?

[John_C_Hansen]

Yes, two legs, the left and right leg need to have a single body that is different than the center leg. That part is the shoe and I made in from one body.  While I can get through this project by make one new body for the shoe on the left and right leg, there will be some day in the future when the need to replicate a component will be more complex. So, for the future me that makes something more complicated than the two identical pieces of wood for this shoe on a desk leg, I will some day need to know more than how to make a copy of a singe body.

[davebYYPCU]

…. with Press Pull.

Make  your complete assembly, make the 3 copies and now 

you can Copy Paste New into the odd version, a duplicate shoe.  Hide the original shoe component, edit the new independent component sketch for new shoe size.

Might help…..

[TrippyLighting]

I will work on a screencast if you answer whether or not you are using a paid of free subscription 😉

I would actually only follow @davebYYPCU's advice to a point as it includes a hack!

[davebYYPCU]

Are you attributing Press Pull to me?  It was a quote, that it did not want to promote.

[TrippyLighting]

No, what I am referring to as a hack is hiding components that actually should not be part of the assembly 😉

[TrippyLighting]

Attached is most of your design with a better workflow and assembly structure.

I believe the problems in the timeline of your design stem from one of your workflows.
You fits create a sketch, then create a body from the sketch. Then you create a component and cut/paste the body into that component.

You should first create a component. By default new components are activated right after creation. Now you can create a sketch and, for example, extrude geometry from the sketch. Now the sketch and the body are part of that component.

If you go through the timeline of the design I have attached you should be able to see how it was created. I am happy to answer any questions and can create a screencast if needed.

[John_C_Hansen]

I agree that the workflow that I used in the beginning was a portion of the issues that I encountered. Thanks for your help. The design method that you used for the desk top was quite simple and straightforward. My initial idea was that work such as sketches that are done in one component could be moved to other components. I would learned that by moving things in the browser once they were created was not helpful.