When trimming wooden plugs with a chisel, it’s easy to mar the adjacent surface or tear out the plug grain. When you have more than a few plugs to trim (such as on the Porch Swing on page 30), using a router is a much cleaner, easier approach. To do the job, attach a couple of “riser strips” to the base of a laminate trimmer or other router using double-faced tape. The strips enable the router base to ride over the plugs while a straight bit adjusted a hair shy of the work surface trims the excess. Finish up the job with sandpaper.
