That looks great! I'm going to have to do that to the skirt-removal on the one I recently picked up too. Any words of wisdom?
Sure!
I did two things - one is to cut off
all the old skirt between the vestibule and steps (more on that in a moment), the other is to add an .030" x .030" strip of styrene in its place.
To remove the skirt,
don't try and cut it all off neatly in one go! I did the following:
0. Completely disassemble the car, including removing window glazing.
1. Mask off the side above the skirt where you don't want to cut. I used blue masking tape. The important part is for the target cut line to be plainly visible.
2. Take a razor saw, and make vertical relief cuts every 3/8" or so (no need to be precise) in the parts of the skirt you want to remove. Don't try and get the cuts precisely by the steps - get close, but it's better to finish with a file later. Also, don't try and cut all the way to the target cut line. Just get close (see step 3 below).
3. Cut off chunks of the skirt, between the relief cuts.
I used sturdy square-end nail clippers, but the skirts on this car were pretty thick and it was a struggle. Square-end nippers would be better, but you'll need to modify them (grind down the jaws) to be able to cut close enough. Do NOT cut all the way to the desired finish line. Leave about 1/32" or so.
4. Carefully file to the finish line. I used a full-sized medium cut mill file, then smoothed it with a drug-store foam-core nail-file board (the kind with multiple grits on it.
5. Attach (glue) a strip of .030" square styrene to form the short smooth skirt at the bottom of the side between the steps.
