Chuck described his preferences regarding routers for use for laminate trimming, inlay work and plunge routing. The nature of inlay requires a plunge router with collets or collars with barrels attached. You’ve probably seen the sets of 5 or 6 brass or steel pairs of screw-in circles surrounding the router bit. Porter Cable offers a popular set, but so does Woodtek, Woodworkers has them both. Chuck cautions only the Woodtek collets have a uniform ¼" guide bearing. He’s had to have others ground to a uniform height (depth actually), especially if you’re routing shallow material. The Woodtek set runs approx. $60.

If you use HSS router bits, the plywood, masonite, plexiglass, MDF template material will eat them-up pretty quickly. He recommends carbide cutters $50-$60 each (up or down-cut spiral bits). Curiously, HSS bits are fine for the actual wood-cutting on your work piece. Machinist’s end-mills are inexpensive enough to use and discard. Again there are up and down cutting end-mills, according to where your best surface is relative to the bit. (Through cuts, use up-cut, to clear-out the wood particles; surface cuts use down-cut, slower, but the top surface won’t be ripped-up.)

Clamping or a good double-sided tape were suggested for fixing the template to the work piece, with a cautionary note regarding the type of d-s tape chosen and the need to clean-up the adhesive afterward. Basically, leave your work pieces longer, if at all possible, so you have clamping room, out of the working area of the router.

Chuck faces his clamps by gluing softwood to the faces with polyurethane glue. He recommends Cook’s Building Supply for ball bearing hinges (appx. $15 per hinge). That was just thrown in as an extra value!

For the carpenters: the depth of cut varies with patch thickness.
For the engineers: doc = ƒ (patch thickness).

The thinner the patch, the more likely it is to crack while being pressed, squeezed, hammered into place, so thicker is better, unless you’re learning physics!