Rick, I lived in Rochester, NY. for two and a half years in the mid seventies, and my wife and I loved going up to Toronto for long weekends. We stayed downtown in a very upscale hotel and enjoyed all of the night life, but the best thing was the incredible friendliness of the locals. What a great city. I was the marketing manager for Schlegel Corp. and was asked by the Canadian Mgr. to replace him in Toronto when he was transferred to Europe, but corporate would not let me go. I resigned and left to return to Miami in 1975. That's when I ran into offshore boats. Canada was probably lucky!

Rick your project is going to be a success because you (just like ren3) have a fundamental knowledge based in many years of FRP .......there is no limit to what this "glorious material" (albeit a bit itching) can be reshaped from and altered into........call me crazy, but I love the smell of styrene!! :thankyouthankyou:

Rick G, I would make a mold of Mica set it in gelco it then do all the layups, that way it would hace a smooth finish.

I was at the shop last night and started grinding and did a prelim fit of the notch panel. It will be a slow process of triming and fitting as I want the insert just right before I glass it in place . Automobli I have a reverse plug already made to set the ecterior material in place , as I will agree sanding and grinding upside is a pain .
Scippy I think I am as crazy as you because I like the smell too.
Ren3 , Toronto is a cool place , if you ever get back up here be sure to look me up.
If any one wants to fill in a notch I will make them a really good deal on the piece I cut .
Here are a few more puctures.

If you can not do a mold, you can still get a pretty smooth gel surface by rolling gel coat with Duratec gloss additive with the white foam mini rollers from Home Depot. Other brands are not solvent resitant. The HD rollers will last about 15 minutes. If you sand the final layer of gelcoat within 24 hours, it is very easy to get to a finish ready for compounding. The rolled surface is very comparable to a sprayed surface with fine orange peel.

Great project with a big reward at the end. Nice work.

Ren3 good tip , I will try that on my last exterior coat.
RG.

Dumb question
 

but putting in a notch is essentially like moving the drives back? What are the advantages of a notch?

Great project btw

Similar effect as extension boxes. Allows for higher drive heights and thus go faster.

Mild Thunder right on , the only difference for me is putting boxes on would cost a ton of dough and putting the notch is something I can do myself . ICDEDPPL the advantages are as I stated above the other advantage is helps reduce mid range proposing
RG.