Have to agree with you, the stab was a b**ch! Fortunately for me, Jimcork was providing information that helped me quite a bit, and I watched that really carefully when I did mine, Still took me about two evenings of cutting and fitting until I was satisfied.
Doing small parts first is a good idea to get a feel for using the poly. I think I'm just barely going to have enough glass to finish. I got 3 sq. yds. thinking that would be plenty, but I'm now down to using scraps to cover hatches, etc. But, I could not even imagine trying to monokote this bird. In my about 20 years of doing this, that's one thing I've never gotten particularly good at. But I can sure appreciate some of the jobs these guys do with monokote or iron ons in general.
Oh yes, while you're getting the poly, get some of the cheap disposable brushes to apply the stuff with.
Randy