I haven’t used a power router for anything other than chamfers/roundovers and the occasional flush trim in a very long time.  However, for the floor of the medium tool chest, it might be time to bust out the rabbeting bit for cutting some ship-lap joints.  I don’t own a fillister plane and I only need to cut a few rabbets, so why not?

Hello, old friend.

I’ve always liked the concept for a rabbeting bit, even after I switched to hand-tools.  Much like the flush trim bit, you still need to joint a square, straight edge on a board to run the bearing along.  Although a bit messy for apartment woodworking, but with only four rabbets to cut (as the tool chest floor will consist of three boards total), I’m pretty sure the cleanup after rabbeting by power router will be manageable.

I’ll put a simple chamfer on the tongues of the ship-laps with a radius plane (a tool I don’t use nearly enough) to finish the joint.

Hello, other old friend.

JPG