I made a paper template of the firewall and transferred it to the stainless steel sheet with a marker. I used aerospace tin snips to cut the stainless steel piece to size. I never had used tin snips and after experimenting a little bit on the corners of the stainless steel piece provided, I found out it worked better for me if I tried to cut small sections (1/4” per stroke) and not try to cut bigger lengths. This made it easier on the hands and would not bend the steel. I drilled the bolt and rudder cable holes and adjusted their size with a Dremel grinding bit. Once I got the piece cut to the final size, I cleaned the stainless steel with alcohol to remove the black markings. I sanded all the edges by hand with an 80 grit sanding disc and then with a coarse sanding drum on the Dremel to eliminate the sharpness of the edges. For final finishing, I bent about 1/8” of the perimeter of the piece very slightly toward the firewall with a pair of small pliers.
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