Last night I spent some time on the square dog hole strip for my bench. I started out with the router jig I mentioned last time. I used a top bearing pattern bit and successfully routed out one hole. There were a few technical issues though. Make sure your pattern bit can route to the depth you need (note the jig adds 3/4"). And also note that if you don't remove some of the waste to start with the first cut is going to be very deep to get the pattern bearing down to the jig.
All went well for the first hole but on the second hole I somehow ruined my jig:
I think I was going too slow (thanks McRabbet) and pushing too hard because somehow I cut into the pattern.
2 down, 9 to go and no jig. What to do? Since I was not 100% what went wrong and I was tired of wearing hearing protection and a dust mask I decided to finish the work with hand tools.
First I marked out all the edges:
I thought about using a marking gauge to mark the depth of the holes but instead I used my router plane which worked wonderfully for this.
Next I cut the sides of the holes with a backsaw:
Then I cut some extra kerfs to make it easier to remove the waste:
After the kerfs are cut a large chisel easily removes most of the wood. Only take a little at a time though (< 1/8?) otherwise you may easily blow out the other side:
After the majority of the waste was removed I cut down to the baseline with a chisel. This is in preparation for using a router plane:
Next I cleaned out the majority of the waste and flattened the bottom of the channel using a router plane:
Finally I removed the small remainder of waste with a mortise chisel and cleaned up with a bench chisel and gouge:
I was quite pleased with this flow and the result. The other 9 work great and I estimate it only took 3 or so hours (an hour of which was spent futzing with the jig!).
Hopefully I will get the other side of the dog hole strip laminated tomorrow night but I have to find a piece of suitable wood first.
Then comes a task I am dreading! I wasn't very careful when gluing up the top with respect to the width of the boards. So now I have to rip these monsters to width! I have one side squared with a hand plane but even with good infeed/outfeed support I don't think I can cut these perfectly straight with the table saw.
Wish me luck!
Salem