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You will need to collimate the scope once you loosen the clips, so it doesn't matter if you do it now or then. It wouldn't be so gross the miscollimation anyway to inhibit you from using the scope.
A 50mm apeture on the scope cover is there as a solar apeture to use the projection method of viewing the sun, not for reducing glare. You will need a larger opening than this.
I would suggest a 4" opening to start with for an f/12 ratio. However, with the secondary in the way (I would do the apeture cut-out over the centre of the scope with your 8" scope), this would reduce the f/ratio to something like f/14 (assuming the central obstruction is something like 50mm). This effective ratio is still very good. You can always make it larger. It is harder to add material back.
You can always make up a few masks of different diameters, smaller and larger, the one box will provide anything at least four masks. You can then decide which works best for you.
The reason for using the waxed boxes is this makes them more water resistant for when the night dews up.
The Neutral Density (ND) filters may work. The box won't cost anything as an immediate solution. Better off spending the money on a good nebula filter than ND, IMO. Far more useful.
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