What is the best way to cut out a grill?

[Deckerz]

I am wanting to cut the grill part out of my 71 gtx grill but I don't know what is the best way of doing it, I've been told to sand down the back so the plastic is thin enough to cut it out easily with a blade and shouldn't damage the surround. I dont have a rotary tool at the moment so thats sort of off the table.

 

What would you guys recommend?

[Jantrix]

I buy nail care sanding sticks at my local beauty supply store. They sell one that is something like 200 grit. It makes short work of most anything. You could sand down the back of the grill with something like that and it would take no time at all. The advice you got was the best advice. You don't need a rotary tool, just some elbow grease and the right tool.

[espo]

I have done only a few grills and find that most are cast in such a way that when I got the grill thin enough to make the opening the grill was almost to fragile to work with. The last one I did, and it came out very good, was on the '37 Ford pick up. I used a "pick" much like a dentist would use. The tool is about 6" long with a curved sharp point on each end. You use the tool to scribe the opening ever deeper from the front. In my case I scribed all the way thru, but on a later model grill I think if you scribed from the front as deep as you can without losing any of the grill detail you could then sand from behind. That my leave the grill with enough strength that it can be handled without damaging the grill.    

[62rebel]

I've scraped the backsides of the grilles down to paper thin so I could open them up properly, it's tedious and fiddly. some grilles don't have enough relief to do this. Opened a few '30's grilles like that. lots of work. 

[Mike Kucaba]

Are you trying to thin the grille out so that it appears open, or are you wanting to remove the grille and replace it wit a Photo-etch part.?

[Deckerz]

Im wanting to remove the grill to leave the surround then put some mesh behind the surround, ive been using my blade the slowly etch through the grill but I can only manage to do the top and bottom, where the grill curves round my knife isn't capable.