Today the layup for the cover had cured. It was time to demold it.

Actually came out pretty easily. That mold release worked well.

All those stray fibers along the top were like needles sticking up. It only took me getting poked once with them to realize I neede to trim that top edge off. I used a diamond wheel in my dremel.

Here's the cover in position. The little joggle in the sides looks really good...a nice match to the thickness of the aluminum below it.

...but I somehow managed to make the cover too short. Arg!

I decided to just modify the cover. You may recall back in Sat May 14 2016, when I was crating up the fuselage in preparation for moving that I managed to make a crate a bit too small. Well, my CS-9000 (Crate Stretcher, Model 9000) worked great there. What I didn't mention at the time was that they were running a promo...with every purchase of a CS-9000, you got a complimentary CS-100 (Cover Stretcher, Model 100). It's a much smaller unit, and more manual opererations, but I think it'll be the hot ticket for getting this sorted out.

First step when using the CS-100 is to split the offending part to determine the desired final length.

It appears that if I want ~1/16" gap at the back edge that I need to stretch this cover by about 3/8".

Here I'm setting the correct spacing.

...all set for a splice.

Ready to saturate the composite for the splice. This might end up being just temporary. I may sand it out later.

Cut out and ready to lay in position.

Just need to let it cure.