[Elecraft] KX3 Bottom Cover - To Sand or not To Sand?

[Dave Jewell]

I’m having *HUGE* fun building the KX3 which I received yesterday.  

BUT… I’m now scratching my head on page 20 of the assembly manual.  

This page shows various views of the bottom cover and the need to remove the paint masks, as I’ve already done for the top cover.  The small leftmost illustration (immediately above “Figure 25” on the page) indicates that there should be a small mask on the left end (as viewed in the illustration) corresponding to a much larger mask on the right end. 

On my bottom cover, this isn’t there.  I’ve removed all the other masks - inside and out - but there is no mask to remove in the indicated position.  And because there’s no mask, there’s paint where there should be bare metal.  On the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, my bottom cover inside end looks like this:

http://www.gloddaeth.com/1.jpg

instead of looking like this:

http://www.gloddaeth.com/2.jpg

So my question is: does it matter, or do I need to start sanding this area.  As far as I can tell, there’s only a battery holder in this position in the completed rig, but I’d like to know one way or the other.  

Thanks,
Dave GW0LUA