Finally!!

It was a long wait overnight, Gordon was kind enough to wait for me to show up before we unwrapped it. I was so excited I forgot to take a picture of it fresh out of the bag

 
I immediately took it out to the hangar (ok, I went home and took a nap first.) and started fitting it. 

Note the blue tape arrow reminding me which side was up.

Later, Gordon came out to help fit it, and instead of my (dumb) idea of holding it to the panel and trying to trace a line, we put the panel on the mold, sat the deck on top of it, then traced the line. We thought the wings at the edge of the panel would tend to splay out, we were wrong. More on that later.

Um, I was a little nervous about making the cut. No going back if it went bad. (by the way, has anyone seen my hairline? If found please return it to me.)

Concentration and teamwork. Gordon held, I cut. The blade bogged down when it hit the Bondo at the angles, even with a fine tooth blade it took some gentle persuasion to get it through.

We were a little nervous about doing the cut so soon after the layup, but I'm on the road for the next two weeks and wanted to get it shipped to Jim before I left. A little sandpaper to take the fuzz from the cutting off....

And it was time for trimming, fine tuning and fitting. 

Remember what I said earlier about the wings splaying out? Either they did not, or (more likely) the hull was wider than the nosedeck. As we started lowering the panel into the hull we noticed the top was higher while the edges were flush. Time to stop, look, talk, measure, look again, remeasure, take a deep breath, cut, and.....

admire a perfect fit.

 

Now to lock it in. 

Looks a little Steampunk with the screws. Note the final panel design in the background.

Victors get rewarded. 

It's already on the way to Florida for the winter. Jim will mark the locations of the various instruments and switches, ship it back to Gordon for cutting, staining and finishing, then back to Jim for wiring.