the good thing about CF is that sanding the edges cover all your mistakes and give the plate a neat looking finish
a good advice, do not remove the protective layer until you are finished cuting and sanding, you will scratch it. been there, done that
At least for me the setup for cuting and finishing CF is:
Dremel with a cutting disc
a set of fine grain files, flat round and triangular
sand paper 400 grain for fine finishing and 180 grain to reduce big lumps and dents.
small drillbit for the screw holes i think it's 3mm diameter and a really big one for the big holes (to reduce weight. 3mm CF is HEAVY) - To make the holes, you need to do two steps:
first with a slightly bigger drillbit, start the hole, don't go all the way trough, stop, change to the smaller drillbit and finish the hole, now turn plate, and with the bigger drillbit, carb away the excess debris left by the drillbit breaking the surface. it's a slow and tedious process, but to get nice results you must suffer jejejejjeje
On ebay you can find 2mm CF for 25 dollars! that is cheap and really good quality, keeping in mind that a tricopter frame is not a heavy duty aplication, so go ahead, get a plate and cut the hell out of it
cheers