: I wouldn't buy any of the stacked cutters they seem to be selling because you
: really need to have two routers set-up to test the alignment properly.

I used the MLCS stacked cutter (with 1/2" shank, because that's the collet I keep in my router 90% of the time) and did not find it to be that much of a pain. The cove edge was very easy to adjust, because you can very easily see in which direction the bit height or fence depth needs to be adjusted. Took 10 minutes and about 30 inches of pine strip. Then run all the strips through.

I've seen instructions that say to do the beads first because the coves edges are fragile, but as long as you're using something with some width, like a featherboard made out of 1x6, to keep the strip snug against the fence then the pressure is spread out fairly well. It might also be relevant that I was cutting a 1/4" radius cove out of a 3/16" strip, so perhaps that gave the edges more structure.

The bead was more trouble because the visual feedback wasn't as clear. To set the depth, I colored the side of a little piece of strip with a pencil, and did runs where I would back the fence away a little bit each time until only a line remains. To set the height, you just slot your test bead into one of the coves already cut and check that it fits the same right-side-up as upside-down.

It was a little fiddly, but felt much less daunting for a first-timer than the thought of keeping a consistent and correct bevel for 16 feet, or of clamping it in such a way that the inner edges meet though the outer ones won't. Sounds like too much of an art. I wouldn't have bought a router to do it, though. It was also an easy decision for me because my garage was too cold to glue, so the bead & cove gave me the feeling I was accomplishing in preparation for assembly once spring shows up (tomorrow!).