On Saturday 29 Jan 2005 4:24 pm, dave scribbled:
As I pointed out in:
You can make the rough cut with a bandsaw, jig saw, scroll saw, coping saw, keyhole saw, rasp, your teeth, etc.. I would even say freehand on the table saw, but Doug is likely to jump all over me for promoting unsafe work practices.
To hold the template to the new insert for routing it, use double sided (carpet) tape.
To make the zero clearance cut, raise the blade into it after clamping it down to the table. I use the fence, but others clamp a 2X4 or other appropriately-sized piece of wood.
If the blade (at its lowest position) is too high for the insert to sit flush (not likely with a dado blade) so you can safely make the cut, you have three options:
(1) Use a smaller blade to start the cut, (2) route a slot on the underside, or (3) as suggested by WoodButcher in a thread back in May 2003 (quoting from his post):