Progress made! I rebuilt the louvers and ended up glassing all these painted parts with .5 oz cloth and water based polyurethane. It was my first attempt at glassing and it was amazingly easy with this approach versus epoxy resin. I then filled the weave with thinned (with water) spackling compound and Krylon primer, sanding them all down. I accidently sanded though the weave in a few spots but now I know to use more caution. Once I had a nice surface, I added trim tape to get the look of the crimped edge on the straight parts as well as the outline of the cowl side door panel, and then pin head dabs of epoxy to represent the rivets. I glued on the louvers one at a time and used epoxy mixed with micro balloons to smooth the joint - it's a little heavy in spots but good enough. The hinges for the side door panel are just cut pieces of steel rod and a little tape. After a nice coat of primer, I painted with dark green Model Masters paint. It looks great and has a nice satin finissh. My only concern is that the paint seems to mark up fairly easily so I'm thinking of applying a coat of Model Masters clear satin finish to protect it. Anyone have experience with this? Since this is electric it doesn't need to be fuel proof.
Steve