It is a bit of a pain but the bennie is that the upper cover and leg attachment are alreay in place. You have to carve off the external ribs and handhold covers, then you get to have the fun afternoon with the hatch cover. Once that is done the sanding is all 150 down to 600 grit dry then wet. In the truth and beauty category your method better replicates the BP models in that the capsule skin was flush with the base of the LES cone. With the sanded down version you have a bloody great drop off immediately below since the detail was flush with the upper cover to represent the spacecraft...

Your solution is probably better in the short run plus you've got a leftover BPC to play with later and beg a set of legs and LES nose from Apogee.

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