Well, as the title says, I managed to ruin my dash. Through my own stupidity, and inattention I clipped the dash in place to mark for the brackets to mount it to the frame. Then got sidetracked by work phone calls, and forgot it was still clamped in place. Left it there overnight, and now, as you can see in the photo, there are two places along the top edge where the foam backing has been compressed flat, and does not seem like it will recover. Checked with the company that supplies the materials to Alex to see if they had any suggestions, and they thought that heat applied to a wet towel over the spots would cause it to rebound. Sat applying heat for way longer than I was comfortable doing, and no luck. It appears that I will be disassembling the dash, removing the vinyl and foam, and recovering.
P5050097 by Rick Paul, on Flickr
If I keep this up I'll be too old to drive it if I ever finish!
Rick