: Dear Oracle

I don't know Mr. Oracle, but perhaps I can shed a bit of light..........

Don't over-complicate matters. Place bits of masking tape where you want slots, and mark them. The slots will need to be as long as your webbing is wide, and only wide enough to allow two thicknesses of webbing to poke through. This will make something of a challenge to conquer, as the end of a webbing loop must be passed through during installation. But we have a plan for that.....

Mark the centerline of the slot with a couple tick marks to denote the ends, then use a 1/16" drill bit to make a bunch of holes along that line and within the bounds of the end marks, and make as many as you can. Then drill at an angle to clean out as much of the slot as you can. Then stick a piece of sandpaper (I use self-adhesive sanding disks on my ROS so this part's easy) to a hacksaw blade and shove it through the partially cleared slot-to-be to clear it the rest of the way out, then sand the edges smooth. Don't get scientific, just make it happen. It's the easiest thing I do all day.

Use contact cement, spray adhesive, glue stick, et al, to glue plain sandpaper to hacksaw blade if you're a hook-n-loop kinda ROS guy, or maybe use a fingernail file.

I seal the slot with a dose of super glue, and immediately get on with my life. Varnish or clear fingernail polish would work just as well. Give it two or three app's if it makes you feel better; in any case you save 24 hours and a little excess weight over epoxy. All you really need to do is petrify the wood so no pores are left functional, and epoxy ain't the only show in town for that.

When ready to shove a loop through, get a pair of pliers and pinch a corner hard, to get it good and flat. Feed the flattened corner up through the slot so you can grab it on the other side with the pliers, then yank 'er on through.

To seal, apply a small bead of silicone sealant to the base before giving it the final yank that seats it home.