I trimmed the flat layup to size this morning, using the fein multimaster. I bought the multimaster after reading all of the rave reviews on other builder websites. This thing is awesome! Very easy to trim the layup. I can't imagine what the chewing gum stage is like for knife trim, but this has to be way easier!!!
On the downside, the layup sucks. It turns out that I was squeegeeing way too hard. While everything seemed to be fully wet out when I used the plastic pressure ply, now nearly the entire lauyup is white. Even more distressing than that, it looks like there are two large air bubbles near the edge. (I deliberately trimmed the 10" x 16" rectangle to cut through the bubbles so I could see what they look like in cross section)
Further inspection reveals that part of the problem was with a crease in the top layer of plastic. I was going to run a hair dryer over it to flatten it out, but as I plugged it in, I discovered why my wife was so happy to part with that hair dryer. The plug / transformer disintegrated in my hand as I tried to plug it in. I'll replace it with a cheapo hair dryer when I do the confidence layup.
