Advice on cutting injection canopies/clear parts

[pyro-manic]

I am currently building a helicopter model (1:72 Heller Alouette III), and I want to have one of the side doors open. However, the whole side and half the roof is moulded as one piece of clear plastic, and I am worried about cutting it apart as I am usually quite cack-handed, preferring to just hack away and repair any damage afterwards. With clear parts this is obviously not an option, and the plastic is much more brittle than the usual opaque styrene the rest of the kit is made from so I am worried about cracking/splintering.

Does anyone have any tips, suggestions, techniques they would like to share that might help me with this?

Pyro

[Thorvic]

Coat in future to protect plastic, cover area to be cut with tamiya tape to absorb the stresses that cause the brittke plastice to shatter, possible insert a bluetac plug to minimise flexing of the shaped piece whilst you cut.

Use a very fine and sharp razor saw to get a clean and fine cut.

G

[Weaver]

Ditton everything Thorvic said, plus:

1. Plasticine is a bit firmer than blu-tack if you've got it,

2. Pack the whole inside profile with plasticine/blu-tack put masking tape around the bottom edge then tape the whole thing firmly to a board with something very strong like duck tape: the packing stops the plastic from crushing inwards, the duck tape stops the bottom edges from flexing outwards and the edge-masking tape stops the duck tape from coming into contact with the canopy itself.