There are five ways I can cut a rebate in the edge of a panel: table saw, router table, spindle moulder, handheld router or a fillister plane.
The panel is 1335x662 and only (approximately) 11.15mm thick, so it's ungainly and has just enough flex to be a problem. Running it vertical along a table saw fence? Yeah, nah. Router table? Not a chance. Spindle moulder? HA! No. All three would require a long setup time, outrigger supports, something to exert downforce at the cutter, and a puckering bum hole.
The only viable options are handheld router or a hand plane. Big Daddy Festool is an ungainly beast at the best of times and out over space on a flexible panel is one ruined workpiece waiting to happen. Hand plane it is.
Good thing this is also the fastest way to make a rebate. 2 minutes to set the fence and depth stop, 5 minutes to plane the rebates, 2 minutes to sweep the floor. No noise, no dust, no screwups. Just the heavenly scent of Huon and peace.
Until Big Daddy Festool came out to rout the trenches for the sliding dovetails. Ah well. A router is, by far, the most sensible way to cut trenches in a panel of this size. Remove most of the waste with a straight bit then knick off the corners with a dovetail bit.
Getting the two bits (a straight cutter does the first pass, followed by a dovetail bit) to cut the same depth is, in a word, impossible. Good thing levelling the bottom of the trench is a 5 second job with another hand tool!
The ridge in the middle of the trench left by the two router bits is gone in seconds with a hand tool.
Getting the corresponding dovetail on the batten right on the router table is a pain in the puckerer. Lots of tappy-tapping with a hammer to move the fence by a poofteeth (that's a metric poofteenth, approximately 2 imperial gnat's d*cks). Once upon a time I saw a pivoting router table fence with a micro adjuster and a dial gauge to measure how much the fence moves at the bit. I remember thinking 'why would anyone need this when a tappy-tap with a hammer will do'...
I am (usually) happy to admit when I'm wrong.
I was wrong. A micro-adjusting router fence has jumped the jig list.
Tomorrow, tenons and final fitment, then onto the sub frame and drawer boxes. But first, I need to make a new veneer bag. And before I can do that...
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