Not able to recover a body after changing it from 'Join' to 'New Body'

[bhrishikesh]

I created this model for my laser engraver (attached). When I started building it, I started from the face of the NEMA motor. Unfortunately when I extruded the first sketch I left it as 'Join' instead of a new body. Now after completing the whole model, when I tried to export the STL, I realised that a part of the motor is also included in the exported model (which I obviously do not want). I went back and changed the feature to 'New Body' and now the whole body disappeared. What is happening here? How can I recover this body?

[laughingcreek · Accepted solution]

here's a screen cast of fixing this in the time line.  it's a mess because I just started poking around till I figured it out.  also attached the resulting file.

[bhrishikesh]

Thanks a ton. This was really helpful.