This morning, I unbagged the layup and peeled off the felt and peel ply. It seems I had a gap in my peel ply in one small area. The felt stuck.

I sanded down the sides where the tabs resulted in extra thickness.

...and sanded the edges to the correct radius for this phase of the layup.

Time to de-mold this part.

The base came out no problem.

Got the center wedge out. An adjacent piece came with it.

The other small center piece came apart at a glue line when attempting to remove it. I was able to remove the rest easily enough.

The end blocks needed a bit of leverage to remove them.

But in only a minute or two, the part was demolded! W00t!

My expectation was that these four layers would be .028 thick. Pretty darn close.

I trimmed the sharp bits off the bottom edge.

While I was working, Snickers guarded the driveway. :-)

I then cut the lid and sanded the edges until the sides were .860 high.

This band is going to be temporarily reused as a spacer for the layup of the next five layers. I sanded it to a consistent height.

I reassembled the mold...

...pressed the lid on the top...

...and after waxing and spraying the extra band with mold release, pushed it into place. Tomorrow, I hope to be able to layup the five middle layers. I'm thinking of just wrapping them around the mold and folding all the tabs up to the top. Also, I need to add a piece of aluminum on one side to act as the flange of the piano hinge half which will ultimately be embedded in this lid.