My father asked me this question, and I didn't have much in the way of advice. He's retired, which means he's perpetually looking for something to do. Unfortunately, he's 150 miles away, or I could give him plenty to do. One of his little projects is making outdoor signs. The signs are meant to go over an entrance to your property, typically where your lane meets the road (mostly country folk would have such a thing). He makes them out of hedge (osage orange). Typically, he starts with a log roughly 10 feet long and 8 inches in diameter. Where the name will go, he uses a chain saw and cuts either side of the log to reduce the width to about 3 inches. He gets to this part OK. Where he is having trouble is in making the name. What he has been doing is using a spade bid of the proper size, drilling several holes to make the letters, then clearing out the waste. Apparently, this is hard on the drills, not to mention the bit. He blew up one drill doing it, then bought (as he put it) the best Dewalt corded drill, which proceeded to twist the shaft of the spade bit. He asked me if a router would help and I said that we might be able to work with a router with a spiral upcut. We may try it when I go down to visit later this month, but I'm open to any other suggestions re: better bits (Forstner maybe?) or better methods. I think a drill press would be tricky with a piece this large.
todd