Belly pan is back in place, rough fit to underside of wing center section. The holes I drilled in the pan's forward and rear walls, and through corresponding fuse walls, turned out to be very handy. I don't know if I'll use them for mounting the belly pan, but they were useful in positioning the pan while marking for material removal.
Started by taking a tracing from the side view drawing to mark the intersection line between the pan and wing center underside. Knowing that this wouldn't be exact (drawing is flat, pan is curved, I didn't remove material done to the line I made.- just enough so that I could get the front of the pan in place to put dowels through my firewall holes, holding the front of the pan in place.
Of course, there was too much material left, so the rear of the pan would not slide up into position. I then used some scrap 1/8" balsa, pressed against the rib bottoms, simulating the wing sheeting, to use as a guide to draw a line along the excess material. Then, sand down to the line, put the pan back in place, draw another line.....repeat, repeat, repeat until enough material is removed.
I do wish I hadn't put the rear pan former right smack up against its fuse counterpart - I don't know what changed - wood is alive - one side of pan is "interference fit" tight at this joint, while the other side has a gap.that will need filling. Might be best if I just cut if free and reposition it. Yes, that's what I'll do.
Co-worker, not in this hobby, but following this thread, said he couldn't judge how much was left to do or effort required. Well, I started a list and its got over 150 'to do's on it,' and I'm not done adding to the list, yet! Haven't put effort (hours) estimates to each task, yet...... Might not do that - sounds too much like what I do at work!