After drilling up the new cowling skins, I started to have a little nagging voice in the back of my mind asking if I really wanted to wait until final assembly to verify the cowling had not sifted while making the new skins. Of course, the answer was a resounding no.
After discussing it with my friend Rob, we decided to make a "jig" using the original plug that had wrapped around the propeller shaft when I first made the cowling.
With the new skins in place, I put the plug into the nose cowl, then secured it with clamps to some bracing. My thought process is that if the skins are drilled correctly, there will be no change to the position of the nose bowl when interchaning the lower side skins.
We were able to replace both new skins with the old ones and everything cleco'd right into place with no problems, I then pull the plug away form the nose bowl and reinserted it with no binding.
I am now confident the new skins are correctly located.
