Anything and everything Spitfire.

Sorry to go duplicating this from the GT6 section, but I only saw the fibreglass panelwork section today.

Anyway, I'm putting a fibreglass MkIII GT6 bonnet on my MkIV Spit.

Someone told me it was a bad idea to cut out the fresh air vent holes (at the back of the bonnet, over the scuttle) as he'd heard of someone whose bonnet had "folded up in the middle" as a result (admittedly this was on a Vitess, which has a bigger bonnet/more weight to contend with). Also, I realise the GT6 lid is a slightly different shape due to the bulge.

Does anyone think it's a bad idea to cut these vents out? I'd like to make it look as much like a steel bonnet as possible, which I realise is going to take a lot of very careful work!

Someone suggested glassing in some strengthening, but I don't really want to go down that route as I have no experience with fibreglass. I'm thinking I might buy some of that mesh that you can get from Halfords (that the Nova brigade use) and epoxy bonding it underneath any slats I cut, for strengthening. If I make a mess of cutting them out, I might end up cutting the whole hole out and just using the aforementioned mesh.

Anyway, if anyone has any experience to share, or knows it to be a bad idea, please let me know.

The earlier posts about the fit of fibreglass bonnets were interesting. I'll post again later with my experiences with my bonnet.

Cheers

Quentin