Cutting fiberglass dorade boxes

[sailboy21]

Bought a pair of fiberglass dorades to replace my old rotting, leaking, and poorly designed wood ones that came with the boat. Woohoo!
Now the hard part.
They need to be cut to fit the contour of the deck. I think I have the process of transferring the deck contour figured out, but I am not sure about how to cut them. The tools I have at hand that would do the job are a jigsaw, coping saw, and a router/router table.
Margin of error here is going to be small, limited to what you can hide with a bead of sealant. Probably 1/8" or less over their surface.
It seems like I would want a slight angle inward so the shiny part is flush with the deck, but there is some space for the bedding compound to stick.

Anyone done this before? Any tips or tricks of the trade?

[timebandit]

Hand held belt sander??

[fullkeel7]

Jig saw/rough cut...drum/wheel sander chucked up into your drill/grinder for final.

[Faster]

Use a jig saw with a metal cutting ("hacksaw") blade in it for a nice smooth cut with minimal splitting and tearing.

Fine tune it with a sander or small grinding wheel.

[sailingdog]

Why not cut them and then glass them to the deck? That would solve any slight gaps and make them very solidly mounted.

[sailboy21]

I thought about glassing them to the deck. I might end up doing that, but not until summer. Would need to grind through the gel coat and repaint the deck.

BTW: I just finished cutting them with a jigsaw. Went a lot better than I expected. These buggers are going to look so much better!