Clean cut clear plastic

[Misel22]

The piece in the picture below sits in front of the display of an old netbook, an HP Mini 210, that I'm working on right now.

 

As you might see from the reflection there's a transparent glossy plastic part. That's what I want to get rid of but I'd like to keep the black bezel. That, however, is merely paint which complicates the issue.

 

Do you know a way to create clean cuts along the black bezel? Should I simply try a very sharp knife, or maybe something with heat? Or could I use a rough cut and file/sand paper it?

You see, I have a few ideas, but no experience in this matter. Have you done something similar before? What has worked, and what hasn't?

[emosun]

use a dremel then sand and polish the edges for finishing

[OhYou_]

+1 for polish after cutting. no other way

[Misel22]

A short update in case someone wants to repeat this.

 

I went with a dremel and it was a good idea. It's not glass but plastic but it is still veeery brittle. I tried a short cut with a small saw and that didn't work out well. You can't see it well in the picture but I had to fix a small part with black electric tape.

So what I did was using a dremel cutter to carefully and slowly cut a rough square. Then I used two small pieces of wood with a square cross section, put the frame between them and put all that in a vice. It was adjusted so that I could use the grinding tool on a dremel anything to sand down everything that stands out.

 

It's certainly not perfect but that's okay. I'm using a 13 year old netbook as a learning experience.