I am making a box lid out of goncalo alves. There will be a rabbet on all four sides so it sits down in the box. Normally I would rout it, but this wood is really tough; planning it took 10 times as many passes as oak would. I hate to think how long it will take to rout a large rabbet.
I was thinking about cutting it out on the table saw, but I am concerned about how stable it will be on the cut in from the side. It is an expensive piece of wood with some time into it already, and I would hate to have it wobble going through the saw.
So, I think I will make one TS cut in the bottom, and make the perpendicular cut in the side using a thin slot cutter in the router table. It will still take a few passes on the router, and maybe the table saw also, it should be much faster than simply routing it.
Is this a reasonable approach? Does it matter whether I route or cut slots first? Thanks.
While the wood is just as tough as reported, it seemed to glue up okay; at least it survived the planner. In writing this email I found out that a woodworking router routs, but a computer router routes. Who knew?