I would use/read up on the animation snapshot tool-- (as Kbbrown said) I havent used it, but It looks a lot easier for what your doin... As for 'offsetting the time' - You just select the curve, press w for move tool, hold down shift, and middle mouse move the keys a few frames to the left while watching the viewport. ( so the duplicate geometry's animation starts 'N' frames before the original) It's definitely worth learning/reading everything about the graph editor- especially if your gonna animate. Joe