After another attempt from scratch & trying a new child with a Bender theme - I noticed my CSS from the child theme on the page, however my header.php & footer.php ( the ones I changed the most) would not show using my child theme(s).
I noticed that there are not really new updates on building a child themes (most were 4 years old) & a few different methods in forums & youtube. Conflicts on the functions folder, inc.functions, naming issues, following the osclass documentation to create a child theme did not work for me & some suggested having to modify to many php files, it may be easier to "The easiest way to start creating your own theme, is modifying an existing one." I did not state in the original question that I was using WAMP to build the child - if there is a known issue with WAMP & Osclass please let me know ( i did do a search for this & found nothing well known).
So now my question is: is it easier to create your own theme (really not your own) by modification of an existing them or use a child theme (which I can't seem to get to work correctly)??
I realize you will loose out on updates to the modified theme - not an issue unless there's a security issue in the mother theme.
How about some feedback on this issue- would appreciate others opinions - Thank you